My “quilts” were accepted into the Salvaged Threads Exhibition! They will be in the Big Sky Quilt Retreat Show in Billings March 12-14 and then in Toucan Gallery (also in Billings) from March 25-April 25. The quilts will then be offered for sale on the Salvaged Threads blog until July. I still haven’t put a label on the back of these, so I’ve got to do that and then send them off.
I’ve been experimenting with acid dyes, wool and deconstructive screen printing. This screen (which I forgot to take a photo of) was made by using cut pieces of pomegranates. But I think the thickened dye was too thin. Instead of getting the pomegranate impressions, I just got dots of dye puddling on the screen. But it still turned out very cool. This is the wool before I steamed it.
Here’s a close up of the dots.
Here is it after steaming and the one on top is the one I showed you before with the pomegranates printed on. At least that piece looks like pomegranates. I’m still deciding about over dyeing these two.
Here’s a close up of the steamed piece.
I did more dyeing of wool including rainbow for my cat toys, used up the rest of the thickened dye on some merino that I might make into a bowl similar to my silk bowl of the last post. And these are some Wensleydale locks dyed with the exhaust from some nylon netting I dyed purple. These are nice and variegated and kind of remind me of wisteria. We’ll see what happens with these. I have lots of ideas for further vessels and bowls. Next weekend I am off to my Experimental Machine Embroidery class at the Gail Harker Creative Studies Center. I am really looking forward to that. So I probably won’t post until after I get back.
Ruth Lane Art 
Congrats on your piece being accepted!I really like the pink dotted fabric. I can see it worked into many different styles of quilts.
Ruth, I love the pomagranite dye work you have done. So beautiful!
This is coming out great! I would love to try screen printing one day. Do you do it at home or have a studio? Is it difficult?I love the silk bowl and the leave as well!
Red2White – thanks for your comments. I do all my work at home – no studio. I do dyeing, silk screening and other messy stuff in the kitchen. I got Rayna Gillman’s book on surface design for instructions and it isn’t really difficult, just takes a bit of time and is messy.
ruth, those are very lovely. are those felting fabrics you’ve been used?i’d like to learn more how to felt, so may you let me know how to do that?thank you for considering :)i’m looking forward to hear about your great work :)PS. my e-mail is siagian.ch@gmail.com ~christine
Ruth,I love your work. It is so different and you can almost feel the texture!I just wanted to let you know about my 2009 Quilt Retreat Getaway Weekend which is held in Belmont, WI at The Travel Center on November 6, 7 and 8, 2009. The details are on my webpage at Quilts by barb or on my blogspot at Visit Quiltsbybarb quilt retreat blogspotWe would appreciate if you would help us pass on this information and we would love to have you join us!Barbara Raisbeck,Owner of Quilts by Barb
Thanks Ruth, I am also a kitchen crafter. I will give it a go one day. I have got couple of books, but no screen and squeege…and don’s see quite advantage of screen printing to using stencils if working on small project. Maybe I am wrong?
Red2White – Stencils are great for small work and I use those too. What I did with the silk screen can not be done with stencils, it is call deconstructive screen printing. I don’t have a very good example (the red spotted piece) as it was my first attempt. But it gives a much more organic feel to the design than you can get from a stencil. If you go to UTube, there is a very good video about it, that you can watch and understand how it works. Or just google deconstructive screen printing and I think you’ll find some examples.
Congratulations Ruth!
Thank you, Ruth, for explanation! I will check it for sure!
You are amazing! I am going to love following your blog.
congrats on your quilts being accepted, totally deserved though – they’re great, i love your colours 🙂