I am taking an online sketchbook course, Designing with Circles and this is my first page in my book. Just playing around a bit with the pages that I painted earlier with walnut ink. I added some circles of red paper and then some drew some circles with a template and an Inktense pencil. I then added a bit of water to the ink tense pencil for a halo effect around the circles. More circles to come!
I hope that all of you have a wonderful New Year’s Eve and a healthy and happy 2014!
Here’s the next page in my little stitch book that has been a very slow work in progress.
I covered brass washers with #5 perle cotton, stitched them down to the page and then added detached button hole stitch and a few straight stitches.
Here’s a little closer view.
I would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks for stopping by!
Tonight is the Christmas Stroll in Whitefish, MT and I made four gallons of spiced cider to serve at the store. The recipe calls for tea and I used 20 tea bags.
That photo looks similar to my dye pots but I promise I didn’t use the pots I use to dye fiber. Anyways, I have seen quite a few people who have used tea bags in their fiber art work. I never have used any because it always seems like too much work to take them apart, clean them out and then dry them. But I decided I would try it today. It was kind of painful to get them all cleaned out but I’ll see if it was worth it 🙂
Here they all are laid out to dry. I do like the color and it will go well with an idea I am working on currently. I plan on doing some work in my sketchbook with neutral colors based loosely on autumn, decay and the coming of winter.
I already have those lovely eco printed papers but decided I needed more backgrounds painted for the sketchbook. I used walnut ink to paint the pages.
You probably noticed that the pages have some other colors besides brown from the walnut ink.
That is because this is the paper that the pages were lying on when I painted them. I have used this “drop cloth” for many projects including dyeing so there is pigment that runs very easily on this paper. I like how it was completely out of my control how the pages came out. Once they are dry, I’ll start working on some ideas in my “neutral” sketchbook.
I forgot to show you these cards when I made them. I used some painted papers that I had left over from my color class. I don’t usually use commercial stamps but this card felt like it needed something. The red strip of fabric is silk paper.
Here is eco print paper used to make a card.
And again, various painted papers. I try to make up several cards to have on hand. Then when we need a card, I have one ready to go.
I got a lovely gift in the mail yesterday from an exchange we did on the forum. I exchanged with Crealou from Quebec. She sent some very soft alpaca fiber and an ornament.
I just love the ornament, such a cute face. It made me smile and I just love the nose 🙂
Really adorable – thanks so much Louise, I really enjoyed the exchange.
I spent all day today dyeing wool roving, washed merino fiber and a shibori scarf. I used acid dyes to dye the wool. The scarf photos did not turn out so I will have to show you that one later when the light is better. My friend Paula came over and carded some really fine merino roving into batts and dyed a little fiber too.
Here is all the dye set out and one bit of dye mixed up. Most of the pots, I just dyed a solid color. But I did try a few pots with mixed dyes in them.
I had three pots steaming away on the stove.
Here’s a red one.
And a blue one.
Here’s some orange roving in the sink waiting to be put through the spin cycle on the washing machine.
Paula got her wool in at the end of the dye bath after it was nearly exhausted. This is a mix of blue and purple which actually looks better than this photo depicts. It is close to a pale denim color.
This is another one of Paula’s that is a really pretty very pale green.
Paula got three batts carded. This is really fine (15.5) merino and it is so soft.
Here’s a bunch of my roving hung up in the bathroom on the shower curtain rod. I couldn’t believe that I got black when I wasn’t trying. I was going for a deep blue but ended up with black. When I try to get black, it rarely comes out very well.
Here’s some more roving drying. The one on the left was done with three colors, violet, salmon and cherry red.
Since I had the dye pots out, I thought I’d dye more of the washed merino fiber that I have. I did blue,
really dark green,
and a mix of magenta and purple. Now I have bunches of pretty colors to use in my felting projects. The really bright ones are for cat toys. People seem to thing that cats need to have bright-colored toys.
Ruth Lane Art 