Google tells me that there are several problems with my Blog, but honestly, I don't quite understand - they tell me that the font is too small but I usually choose medium. Anyway so much to cover that this will be long.
Anyway, since it has been a while since I posted, it's a good record to post on here so I thought I'd post a few pictures of what I've been up to lately.
I'm sort of in a dither because our new location of The Maye River Gallery is going to open in September in a beautiful new location on the same Calhoun Street but down a bit closer to the river across from the Montessori school, and during the nice weather I confess I wanted to be outside and spent a bit of time experimenting and doing botanic printing.
At the same time, I was asked to help with a project for our Savannah Fiber Guild's 50th Anniversary celebrations so have been collaborating on that as well. It is going to be such a special catered party that we are all excited about and everyone is putting in so much effort for it to be a success. I'll post more about that as we go along but my part is creating a flower display - felted, stitched and other ideas that are going to be beautifully displayed on a botanically printed swag using a large moveable frame
Since we moved, my new dye space is in a tent and it has taken quite a bit of time for me to get organized because there are no shelves but I think I'm finally able to find things fairly quickly. I enjoy natural dyeing as well as synthetic dyeing and as you can imagine there is a lot that is needed - a myriad of dyes - chemicals, measuring devices, scale, pots (lots of them) including an electric turkey roaster, and a fish poacher that sits on 2 electric plates. Additionally, there are lots of wrapping rods and fabric to use for blankets (covering botanical prints to steam). I read a great tip on my FB group to use a large toolbox on a propane stove for larger pieces and my husband fit a way for me to load the pole for steaming - I have tried it and it really works well (my husband had to modify it so the steam wouldn't burn me) but have yet to try really large pieces. It will be given a test when I print the large piece for our guild's party in November. The weather will have cooled down by then.
One of the things I had neglected to do earlier was make up some synthetic dye and dye a small piece to identify the exact color on the lid - this is only the beginning but it's an amazing help since I can see the shade without testing each one - there are so many shades of just blues!
Now I need to get felting so that I will have enough supply for our new gallery! Before we moved, I had dyed a piece of silk that I fell in love with and had made a couple of smaller companion pieces in the same colorway. I didn't know what I'd do with them so kept them to just look at it until I decided. I wanted something that would work without cutting into the design too much. I love the challenge of using all of the cutoffs and I did just that by using them for the edges of sleeves, lapels and front. The companion pieces were used for the lining and, of course, I needed to add more in the appropriate colors. I posted these pictures a while back on FB but didn't include the lining which is quite interesting.
Lining - silk organza, habotai, silk fiber and cotton.
