Inspiration

seems to be coming and going with me lately.  I don't know whether it is our off again, on again spring weather or what.  We've gone from the gorgeous warm days I blogged about before to cold, wet, dreary, gray, and in the 40's.  I wish we could have some spring, not just go from this kind of weather to 90 degrees and summer!

My surface design group has a gallery show beginning this week- I don't have anything in it.  Just couldn't seem to get up to motivation or inspiration to come up with anything I thought was good enough.  I did help hang the show yesterday, and it looks like it will be a good one.  It is the same gallery we've shown in before, but he's moved and is now located pretty close to downtown Salt Lake.  I hope the members get some sales!  Anyway, if you happen to find yourself in Salt Lake in late April or May, here's the show postcard.

I decided I wanted to make myself a summer tee from hand dyed fabric, so I cut off a length of the cotton lycra I got when I was in Reno a year ago.  I dyed it the same colors as this scarf, hoping for a similar result.

It didn't work. At all.  So I overdyed it with the blue dye, and liked it even less.  Too blue, too dark.  No problem, I figured- discharge it!  So it went in a Thiox bath, and after that a Rit color remover bath.  That made it even worse.  The red and left, and it was a flat, grayed shade of blue.  What made it even more frustrating was watching the fabric in the bath.  It would turn a lovely shade of yellow, but as soon as I took it out of the bath, it would oxidize and turn back to the blue.  GGrrrrrrrr!!

After posting to a dyeing group I belong to, I decided I had nothing to lose by dunking it in bleach.  I thought I'd gotten something I would like when it turned a lovely shade of pale grayed lavender.  I want to print on it, so I soaked it in soda ash- and it turned blue again!!!  After it dried, though, I decided I could live with the pale robin's egg blue it has become.  I have it laid out on my table, wrinkled and ready to print.  I'm not sure what color I'll use for that.

I'm going to try something I saw in a DVD workshop I downloaded from Quilting Arts recently, and to do it I will need to steal the trash bag from the shredder.  Don't think they will mind!

And, I finally got around to mounting one of my Tangled Textiles pieces.  I painted a canvas, and sewed the fiber piece to the canvas.  Not easy on the hands, but doable.  I'm really happy with how it looks.  I learned for future reference that painting with a brush is a pain unless you want brush strokes, which I didn't.  So I ended up doing it with a simple little foam roller.

I think the dark border adds just the right touch of definition to this piece.  What's even better, it will be easier to hang this way.

I'm trying to get moving on the next TT piece, which needs to be done in May.  I have some ideas, and hope they might even morph into something larger.  Here's hoping for both energy and inspiration!