How to Dye Fabric with Ice Webinar

I’m so excited to be teaming up with Interweave to offer you a webinar on How to Dye Fabric with Ice: A fun & easy surface design technique on Tuesday, July 2 at 1 p.m. ET.

How to dye fabric with ice

A webinar is a live online seminar.  You don’t need any fancy equipment to attend, just access to the internet with a good connection.

Here is the description:

Its purpose extends far beyond chilling your favorite beverages. Ice just so happens to produce some of the most vibrant patterns on fabric surfaces! Curious what results you can create on your surfaces with ice and dye? Tune into this innovative and interactive online seminar with surface design artist Lynda Heines.

In this webinar, you’ll learn about the materials and process for ice dyeing, and excite in the endless array of possibilities for your quilt projects using this spectacular surface design technique.

Lynda will guide you through:

  • Creating vibrant hand-dyed fabric with ice
  • Selecting and preparing your fabric for dyeing
  • Getting some control over the results
  • Tips to fix unsatisfactory pieces

In addition, you’ll learn how to prepare your fabric, what supplies work best, and necessary dyeing precautions.

Everyone who registers for How to Dye Fabric with Ice: A fun & easy surface design technique will receive a recording of the webinar approximately 48 hours after the live event, plus a 30% discount on other similar products sure to kindle your surface design creativity.

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I hope you can join us. It will be fun and informative. Click here to register.

Posted in art, art classes, dyeing, fabric, ice dyeing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Harvesting 2013 Melissa Lavender

Well, it’s lavender harvesting time again here at Happy Acres. My Melissa is the first to bloom and the first to harvest. Here is what I harvested yesterday.

My bucket full of Melissa

My bucket full of Melissa

I always hang them to dry which takes several weeks. Last year I tried using bags which worked fine so I’ve done it again but not for every bunch.

Melissa hanging to dry

Melissa hanging to dry

Melissa is a mild lavender, great for culinary dishes. I’ve made some delicious shortbread cookies with it. You can find the recipe here.

Lavender Shortbread Cookies

Lavender Shortbread Cookies

This lavender could also be used to make lavender sugar. I made mine with Royal Velvet, but Melissa would work great with it too.

Lavender Sugar

Lavender Sugar

Dave made  a simple syrup with Melissa to add to tea or pour over fruit, and also a couple other of our lavenders. So far, Melissa syrup is the best. Check out his post here.

Lavender Syrup

Lavender Syrup

I’m planning on using Melissa this summer more in cooking. If you have a lavender recipe you love, please share!

Meanwhile I’ve been harvesting our blueberries. The first to ripen are Patriots and the unknown bush that was here when we moved in. So far I’ve picked almost 5 pounds. We’ve been eating them and I’ve frozen a batch for this winter.

Blueberries

Yummy blueberries

Then I have to show you one of the Chandler berries. They are so huge. They will be the next to ripen. Here is one I picked the other day.

Chandler blueberry

Chandler blueberry

Well, that’s all from the garden for now. Back to the art!

Posted in gardening, Lavender | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

More Marbling Class Fun

Monday was the second session of the fabric marbling class I’m teaching at the East Branch Library. For the first half of the class we used brushes which make smaller circles than the pipettes.

For the second half of the session we used our skewers and made flowers.

Making flowers

Making flowers

We also over marbled some of our marbled pieces from last session.

These women are so creative. I can’t wait to see what they are going to do with all of this fabulous  fabric. I captured each of the marblers during this session – making them stop so I could show their work. Unfortunately Scarlet was under the weather and missed this session. My picture of Bev was real blurry, but I did get her art.

Teresa and Ronda taught the Intuitive Art Class I took recently. Teresa is teaching the class in August. Teresa is also teaching a fabric bracelet class next month that I can’t wait to take.

Teresa Schneider

Teresa

Ronda is a quite talented musician and artist. You’ve seen her on this blog several times.

Ronda Haley

Ronda

Donna equated making the flowers to decorating cookies. I’m not sure how that works, but evidently her cookie practice helped. You need to go slow and steady when making the flowers. Quick moves will send the paint moving all over the size.

Donna Small

Donna

Carla is making cloth napkins. I can’t wait to see them completed. However, Carla is in the dog house. She made fudge for this session, told us all about this great fudge she made for us, and then left it at home!

Carla Lemar

Carla

Judy took vacation days to attend these classes. We are so glad she was able to take the time to join us. She also had some pretty pieces which didn’t get in the picture. I do love this picture of her beginning design before making the flowers.

Judy Mason

Judy

Sandy was hard at work making her masterpieces. She changed her palette this week, from bright to more pastels.

Sandy Schultheis

Sandy

Carol seems to always have that big smile on her face and chose such lovely color combinations.

Carol Woertz

Carol

For some reason, my picture of Bev was a real blur. However, here are a couple of her pieces. She picked some interesting fabric to use including this polka dot. She also had some glittery fabric that looked awesome with marbling over it.

A couple of Bev's marbled pieces

A couple of Bev’s marbled pieces

For our last session next Monday we will be working on traditional patterns with combs and rakes. It’s been fun working with these women and introducing them to this beautiful art form. I hope this class will encourage them to continue playing with paint and the size.

 

 

Posted in art, art classes, crafts, fabric, marbling, surface design | Tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments

Everything is growing up!

I took this picture of one of our beds of lavender recently and was amazed at how much it has grown. But then to look back at the pictures from two years back – Oh my!

Lavender bed 2013

Lavender bed 2013

Two years ago it looked like this:

New lavender bed 2011

New lavender bed planted June 2011

And then last year:

Lavender bed 2012

Lavender bed 2012

Last year everything was early so I was harvesting my dear Melissa (second from left) the first of June. This is more of a “normal” year and looks like the harvesting is a week or so away for most of our lavender.

I’m amazed at how this area has changed and evolved. Everything is getting bigger and our planning has paid off. In just three seasons, our shade and sun area has really come together. But this beauty doesn’t come without some work including spraying deer repellant. If Dave didn’t, there would be no hostas to enjoy.

Some of our hostas in the shade area

Some of our hostas in the shade area

The Astilbes below are from my master gardener friend Barbara. She brought these from Virginia and now they will live on here. Unfortunately, Barbara will be leaving this area soon, but this area will remind me of her.

Astilbes from Barbar

Astilbes from Barbara

In other gardening related news, I harvested our last bunch of asparagus for this year. In addition to eating asparagus at many meals,  I froze 9 bags to cook with this winter.

Last of 2013 asparagus harvest

Last of 2013 asparagus harvest

I also made a cobbler from the cup and a half cherries I harvested from our little tree.

2013 cherry cobbler

2013 cherry cobbler

And here is the last of the irises to bloom – one of my favorite. Love those two colors together.

2013 iris

I’ve been looking at scrapbooks lately. I’ve quit making them since we both blog about much of what would go in those books. However, as I was looking at them, I really enjoyed sitting back and flipping through the pages. I had already decided that I will scrapbook about our Australia trip, but now even our picnics and other adventures would be nice to document.

I’ve wanted to make a book from our blogs, but since we are self hosted, I’ve only found one service that would make them and they are now out of business. If you know of any that make books from self-hosted blogs, please let me know.

Besides gardening, I’ve enjoyed teaching my marbling class (today is our second session) and working on some other stuff I’ll share soon.

So much to do. So little time.

 

 

 

 

Posted in gardening, irises, Lavender, Photography, preserving | 12 Comments

Craft Daily: A possible new obsession

I recently received an email about Craft Daily,  the new site from F+W and Interweave. They call it the Netflix for Crafters.

Craft Daily

Here is a little about this website from the news release:

CraftDaily.com, is an experience unlike any before, featuring over 100-hours of full-length, high-quality, fully-vetted instructional videos taught by renowned instructors including:

  • Leading Knit/Crochet Designer Kristin Omdahl
  • Quilts, Inc. Chief Creative Officer and “Quilting Arts TV” host Pokey Bolton\
  • Foremost Mixed Media Artist and Best-Selling Author Pam Carriker
  • Top Jewelry-Making Educator and “Beads, Baubles & Jewels” TV host Katie Hacker
  • Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Stitch magazine Tricia Waddell
  • Master Weaver, Spinner, and Fiber Artist Judith MacKenzie

The best part is that full-monthly access to CraftDaily.com is less than the cost of a single course elsewhere! Access to the site is available through a tiered-subscription program. Subscription options start at as low as $11.99 a month. The only thing needed is internet connection. Different subscription options offer full access or more specialized access to specific content.

The categories of videos include beading, crochet, jewelry, knitting, mixed media, quilting, sewing, spinning, and weaving. You can also search by instructor.

I decided to watch A Fiber Artist’s Guide to Color by Laura Bryant. I had never heard of her, but thought it would be interesting. I really learned a lot even though her medium is yarn. I also watched a great video by Pam Carriker and look forward to finishing that video by Leslie Tucker Jenison. You know, I might even check out the jewelry videos. Just what I need is another obsession!

Even though I own several of the videos on this site, there still were plenty I had never seen. And it was nice being introduced to a couple new-to-me artists.

If you have wanted to watch some of the videos from Interweave and had not yet decided to purchase, this is a great deal. You can watch a lot of videos in a month. They are also adding new ones all of the time. As of today there are 122 videos.

Check it out. It might just be what you need to fuel your next obsession. I’m off to try one of Pam’s techniques.

Disclaimer: I received a one month subscription from the publisher for review purposes. The opinions expressed here are 100% my own. I was under no obligation to offer a positive review and received no monetary compensation.

 

 

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Getting ready for my marbling class

I’m teaching/facilitating a fabric marbling class at East Branch Library that starts today. I am SO excited to introduce ten talented creative women to marbling – one of my present addictions. If you’ve just dropped by, check out this post, this post and this one about my marbling.

It’s been awhile since I’ve marbled so I did some the other day. In the winter my fabric took almost two days to dry. Now with the warmer weather it’s dry in a day. I like that.

Here are several of my pieces from this last marbling session.

Marbled fabric

Marbled fabric

Here is a closeup of a commercial batik piece I marbled over.

Another marbled batikWon’t be long before the fun begins. I’ll be sharing our fun with you soon.

Oh, I harvested some cherries from our little tree yesterday. Not much and there are still a few on the tree that aren’t ripe yet, but looks like it won’t make a cobbler.

harvested cherries

2.7 ounces of cherries from our tree

Have a great week!

Posted in acrylic paints, art, art classes, crafts, fabric, marbling, surface design | Tagged , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Love Thrift Shop Bargains

I had lunch the other day with a good friend and her sweet daughter and on the way home I just had to stop by one of the local thrift stores. In fact, it’s one of my favorites, but I rarely go there since it’s a ways away from home.

I could not believe the bargains! I was looking at shirts to dye and came across these two which I won’t dye.

My new thrift shirts

My new thrift shirts

The one on the left is so bright and colorful – perfect for this summer. I love the other one because of the applique and beading. It’s a bit big for me so I’ll probably cut it up.

Then to the kitchen and craft area stuff. The spoon and fork I’ll be using in my marbling class this next week, and I love those needlepoint canvas circles. I’ve got an idea for this Kleenex box.

kitchen and craft area stuff

kitchen and craft area stuff

I’ve left the best bargain for last!

stamp

Here’s a closer look.

My new stamping tool!

My new stamping tool!

I see using this in the near future probably with a Gelli Plate. Talking about Gelli Arts Gel Printing Plates, drop by And Then We Set It On Fire blog this month. All June they will have guests bloggers showing their art using Gelli Plates. I’ll be posting mine June 22 – 28.

In other news, the library has posted a link to my exhibit. If you are in the area, it will be up until the end of July.

I’ve also been getting ready for June and my art journal page spreads. My June pages are now done except for writing and some doodling as I go. I used one of my new stencils I created with my Portrait.

June Art Journal Page

June Art Journal Page

The shadows on the  page come from the sun shining through my lace curtains. I like that look. Maybe I’m not quite done with these pages yet!

I’m off to play with my new tool. I sure do love bargains!

Posted in art, recycling, Thrift store finds | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

More Stencil Making

Since I bought my new gadget, The Silhouette Portrait, I have been in the stencil-making mode. Here is my new design on fabric.

stone wall stencil closeup

Close up

In this post I’m going to take you through my process from a photograph to my finished stenciled fabric.

A couple years ago, my friend Amy and I took a day and drove over to French Lick, Indiana to enjoy the Fall weather and to take some pictures. I just loved this stone wall.

French Lick stone wall

French Lick stone wall

I thought it might make an interesting stencil so the other evening I got out my sketchbook and sketched part of this wall.

My sketch of stone wall

My sketch of stone wall

The more I looked at this, the more I realized I liked this wall because it looked like African art which I love. With my Ipad next to me and using Paper, I changed the drawing a bit.

Ipad drawing of stone wall

Ipad drawing of stone wall

Yes, that was looking much more like I wanted it to even though it really doesn’t look like that stone wall anymore!  I have to stop right now and tell you something. Years ago when I was under a different administration (marriage), I found a picture of a beautiful denim quilt with a large dog draped on top of it and took the picture to my then hubster. “This is what I’m going to make for our bed.” He thought it was beautiful – a patchwork of old jeans which we had plenty of.

Well, I started working on it and before I knew, I was at the fabric store buying some red denim and white denim with red and blue stripes. I thought I’d just add a little spice – my little (or really large) change to this project. So when I was half done with the top, I showed him. I was pretty proud of it, even though it looked nothing like the picture. He took one look at it and started laughing and said, “It looks like a d*** flag!” I left the room and threw away the top. End of me making any quilts for that bed.

Since then I’ve realized that what I did is part of the artistic process. I don’t want to replicate what I see. I want it to be mine. Anyway, on with this stencil making process.

So now to take this design into the Silhouette Studio software and clean it up, round off the corners.

 

Drawing in Silhouette Studio Software

Drawing in Silhouette Studio Software

Then to cut it.

stone wall stencil

stone wall stencil

On the left side is the stencil, on the right cardstock cut out. I like to cut out with cardstock first to make sure my stencil works. Now to playing with it!

I took one of those pieces I made in that soy wax class.

stone stencil fabric

First stone stencil fabric piece

That was neat, but I wanted more. So I went back into the Portrait and played with the design and came up with this stencil. I wasn’t sure if I’d like it so I just cut it out of cardstock and used it. I’ll be cutting a regular stencil of it for sure.

New stone wall stencil

New stone wall stencil

Then I used it on fabric from my low immersion dye post.

stone wall stencil fabric

stone wall stencil fabric

I can see this pattern repeating. Unfortunately, I ran out of fabric to continue the design.

And a close up:

stone wall stencil closeup

Close up

To be inspired and see what other fiber artists are creating, check out Nina Marie’s Off The Wall Friday Link up. I’m off there right now to get my dose of inspiration.

 

Posted in art, fabric, gadgets, Ipad, sketching, stencils, surface design | Tagged , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Dyeing Vintage Napkins

I’m always on the lookout for linens when I’m out thrift shopping. I’m really attracted to the  damask pattern which are usually white. They remind me of home. On special occasions Mom would get out the iron, starch up one of her tablecloths, and drape it on the dining room table. For some reason I don’t remember the napkins, but sure did love the tablecloth.

I’ve amassed a bunch of these napkins so Saturday I dyed some. I have a good collection of regular thrift cloth napkins since we use them every day, but I didn’t have enough of the same kind for a small get together we are having next month with some ole friends. I thought it would be nice for all of the napkins to match, but not necessary be the same color. And I didn’t want to leave them white, so I did some low immersion dyeing.

napkins in the dye

Napkins waiting for wash out

I had ice dyed these two vintage napkins earlier. They are in my exhibit at the library.

Ice dyed vintage napkins

Ice dyed vintage napkins

They took the color wonderfully and you can see the design but it’s really in the background. I thought the napkins I dyed Saturday were from the same bunch, but they weren’t.

What a surprised when I rinsed them out.

Newly dyed vintage napkins

Newly dyed vintage napkins

I had no idea the pattern would resist dyeing! I had planned to marble over them, but I think they are too pretty to mess with. I was playing it safe with the above dye colors. So for the last two napkins I thought I’d throw caution to the wind and mix some of the colors and add two colors together. And I love these!

dyed vintage cloth napkins

I’ve found lately that when I really try to control my dyeing (or any artistic endeavor), I’m not as happy with it. Just like these two, I just started mixing colors and then poured them on top of the napkins. I love the surprise.

That said, I’m not disappointed with the solid color napkins, but they just reminds me of what I get when I play safe. Pretty, but not really me.

Now to dye the tablecloth. Not sure what color it will be. Any ideas? And do you find in your art that you play safe?

Posted in dyeing, fiber reactive dyes, recycling, Thrift store finds | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Another Sunday Stroll

Yesterday morning was a great time to work in the yard and also get some pictures of our work in progress.  It was warm but overcast – perfect for pictures.

The blueberries are really doing great this year. Can’t wait until they ripen.

Blueberries

Blueberries

I’ve been in the process of moving some of my favorite irises to smaller beds where it will be easier to take care of and also for us to enjoy.

Irises

Irises in one of the front beds

This iris I bought many years ago – Cherub Smile.

Cherib Smile

Cherub Smile

I don’t remember the name of this one and I can’t find the label!

IrisThese peonies came with the house and they are especially lovely this year.

Peonies

white peonies

The neglected raspberries are blooming. They are not really in a good place so we’ve just left them alone. Guess they don’t care what we think!

Neglected raspberries

Neglected raspberries

We are always blessed with blackberries and they are blooming like crazy.

Blooming blackberries

Blooming blackberries

The new peaches are getting bigger!

New peaches

Peaches

One of the areas I’m real proud of is our shade garden. Since we lost that last large elm, the shady area in the slope garden is now sunny so I’m moving some of those hostas to this area.

Shade area

Shade area

We specifically picked these hostas for this area including this huge one – Sum and Substance – after seeing it in another garden on the SWIMGA garden walk. The leaves are so big.

Sum and Substance hosta

Sum and Substance hosta

But in addition to the fruit and perennials, here are a couple pics of our gardening.

Lettuce cold frame

Lettuce cold frame

And the main garden which Dave’s got half planted. If you want to know anything about the food he grows for us, check out his blog Here.

Main garden

Main garden

I spent an hour or so dyeing yesterday afternoon. Here is a sneak preview of a new project.

more dyeing

Thanks for taking the tour. Hope you are enjoying your Sunday.

Posted in dyeing, fabric, gardening, Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments