textile paintings
Posts tagged textile painting
Crocked Dye in a Finished Piece
011 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Painting
What is crocking? It’s when you wash something and the dye particles that haven’t bonded completely with the fabric (usually cotton) float free and bond to something else. It is commonly seen when someone washes a new article of red clothing that then turns all of their other clothes pink after a trip through the washing machine.
How can you avoid this happening in a quilt? The easiest way is to prewash your fabrics. After you bring them home, wash them in synthrapol (a squirt of blue Dawn dishwashing detergent — as long as you have an older washer that can handle high sudsing detergents — works just as well) and a dye catcher sheet. This will hopefully take out all excess dye particles that were not rinsed before the fabric was sold.
That’s usually more than enough — but not always. I had a green commercial hand dye I bought once in Florida that would never stop running dye. I finally threw it away.
Reds are notorious for this. I have this problem with even commercially printed cottons. It’s especially heartbreaking when it happens in a finished piece. You don’t want to throw all of your hours of hard work into the garbage.
Fear not. It’s not worth the tears. If you can’t fix it with hot water, Shout, or any other stain remover (short of bleach of course) — they make something that works just as well. It’s called fabric paint.
Admittedly, this works better on some prints than others. There are some textures that cannot be replicated — but then you just need to reframe your expectations and accept it as it is. This is art and I can use fabric paint if I want to.
This is my latest piece.
I sighed when I pulled it out of the washer. (I typically run my pieces in water when they’re done to take out the water soluble glue I use to help me in the binding process — and to prepare the piece for blocking.) I sprayed it with Shout, turned the water to hot, and threw it back in.
No luck. There was still red all around the grapes on the plate. So I spun out the water and pinned it up to dry.
Once it was blocked and dry — I waited a few days. You have to be patient. You don’t want to have any anxiety when you do this.
I pulled out my palette and put a pinch of yellow on it — and by a pinch, I mean a very small amount. Then I added a large amount of white and mixed it together on my palette. I tried it out on a piece of my cream fabric — the same that I will paint on the quilt — and it was too white — so I added another very small amount of yellow and mixed it in. This was a closer match on my swatch. So I grabbed a paintbrush and painted it onto the affected areas of the quilt. I used a light hand — and added water to thin it out so it wouldn’t look gloppy — went to another section — went back after it had dried a little and added a little more paint. I ended up pulling out a smaller brush to get that very small section between grapes.
And voila’! Much better. I believe it now qualifies as show worthy. I’ll give it shot anyway.
Making Progress
411 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Applique
I have finally finished the appliqué on my latest piece. This piece was tricky to put together. I made it in sections — middle with figure, right wall, left wall, stairs, top of cabin, roof, and sand and rocks at the bottom. Each piece had it’s own vinyl overlay and as I put each section on to the last, I taped the overlays together using the pattern as a guide — and then used to overlays to align the appliqué sections.
First I appliquéd the middle section to white muslin — and then added the right wall.
Then I added the left wall.
At this point, I had a small section of stairs — forgot to take a pic at this point. It was a difficult join because it brought together the previous three pieces — but I made it work.
Then I added the wood pieces at the top of the cabin.
Then I added the shingles of the roof. This was an easy piece because there was almost all black between the cabin and the roof.
And finally I added the sand and rocks at the bottom.
All of this appliqué took about twice as long as usual. This is how it finally turned out.
And this is the back.
It is now pinned and ready to begin quilting. My fingers are sore so I probably won’t start until tomorrow. I still haven’t printed out my value painting & started drawing quilting designs on it, but I think the cabin will be very straightforward. There’s so much detail in the appliqué, I don’t know that there’s much room to show off quilting.
There’s also the issue of machines. I got so mad at my Viking during the appliqué that I wrapped it up and stuck it in a corner — and used a borrowed Janome to finish it. I am not as sure with the Janome to do the free motion quilting though. I may go back to the Viking for that. It doesn’t jam during free motion work — just during appliqué.
North Carolina Insanity
111 years ago
For my current piece, I was inspired by another picture by Dorothea Lange. This one was taken in North Carolina — 1936 I believe — and shows a woman, probably a sharecropper, standing in an old wooden shack. It appealed to me.
And as I started to work on the first wall of the cabin — I wondered what I was doing. I do portraits. This piece will have a figure in it, but she is not the main focus of the piece.
At one point, I did come to the realization that she is the house. I saw something online by Alice Walker in which she opined the situation of a slave that didn’t have the opportunity to express herself creatively — and I knew that this was the woman in the picture. She is bereft of herself and as worn down and tattered as the house in which she stands.
This is the first value for the right wall of the cabin. It’s a stand-in for plaster. The light in the pic isn’t great — I was working on this at night and didn’t think to turn on my natural light lamp.
This is the second value. It looks stark against the first value. It’s a batik that I bought to work as the background of my last piece, Worry, but it was too light so it ended up in my stash and works nicely here. Really — it does. Just keep going.
My third value is a rusty brown. I had to search some to find this. I had some rusts in my stash but they were too dark.
It’s a wall — I promise — although I’ll admit that I was getting disheartened. Sometimes you just have to keep going. This wall on the right of the piece is lighter than the rest of the cabin.
The next value is the first true brown — but there isn’t a lot of it here.
And then there is the darkest brown. Still doesn’t look right.
I did realize at this point that I needed to add the door facing — so I went back to the 2nd value.
And the 3rd value.
And the 4th value. Done. OK — it doesn’t look right to me either. The only thing missing is the black. There are many tiny lines of black separating the boards — and I had intended to do this in thread at the end — but at this point, I was disheartened and wondering if I had wasted my time — so I added the black.
Why does that make so much more sense? It just does. Without it, the eye just sees a jumble of shapes.
And then I did her face. I had painted myself into a corner. I couldn’t use the same brown tones I had used in the cabin for her face, so I decided to try the more yellow browns.
Her face is tiny — maybe an inch and a half — and when I first did this, I took this pic and then threw it in the trash. But, looking at it again in my camera with a little more perspective, I thought it might work — so I fished it out and started making her clothes.
I needed a color that would make her stand out but not look expensive. In the end, the blue would look best against her skin. This shows the first (very small) and second values.
The third value shows more of the outline of her dress.
The fourth value brings it even more to life.
This is the fifth value — and at this point, I’m happy with her face.
And then there is a little bit of black to add in there. (Don’t worry about her ear — it won’t be that large once I add her hat.)
Here she is in her hat and shoes. I chose gray which will be similar to the tiles in the roof. The background will be black and will fill in the space between her dress and shoes.
And here she is complete. The tablecloth and table leg are suggested objects. The rest of it falls into shadow.
As of today, I’ve done both the right and left walls of the cabin, the steps, and I’m almost done with the boards above the door and across the entire top.
I have to admit that I must be insane. This is a very complex piece. The applique is taking a very long time to do. And it is a true departure from the kind of work I normally do.
And yet I keep going. When I’m done with the cabin top — there are still a couple of rows of shingles at the top — and then rocks at the bottom. Hopefully all of this will make sense in the end.
Make It Work
011 years ago
Last week, I finished the cardinal and put it in water to soak.
I had a thoughtless moment where I put synthrapol in the washing machine while the bin was filling with water. I thought to myself — that’s a mistake — I should empty the tub and start over. But then I thought — it’s so small — it shouldn’t matter.
If I had been really thinking, I would have reminded myself that red is bad to bleed — but I wasn’t thinking so I threw the piece in the water with a Color Catcher on top (I wasn’t totally brainless).
But of course, as you can see, the reds bled onto the background. This is what it looked liked after spraying it with Shout and washing it with OxyClean in cold and hot water — many times. I couldn’t get out any more of the red from the background. (I was able, thankfully, to shrink it a little. It was just over 12″ square — and for the exhibit I made it, it needed to be 12″ square — which now it is.)
I have had this happen before — with Beach Guardians. Thankfully, the background wasn’t printed so painting it with fabric paint should work. At this point, it was my only option left.
But I put it off — and worried — and procrastinated. No one wants to ruin something in the final stage with paint. I had spent almost two weeks on this piece — and I wasn’t looking forward to that going down the tubes if it didn’t work.
I took my fabric paint and mixed it on my palette — and got really close to where I needed to be.
I thinned it with water and blended it into the background.
I think it works.
I compared it to my picture of the piece from last week before I put on the binding — and the background looks less green. That is really only a difference in lighting. It’s almost scary how big the color shift is. This time, I used a side light — and last week I didn’t — but I couldn’t go back & re-take the pic with the bleeding — so I just kept it like this so you could compare apples to apples.
You may have noticed that I used a binding that matches the background. I almost always use black for binding — but as I said — I was trying to make this piece a specific size — and my cardinal just barely fit in the space. The best way to give him some breathing space was to use a binding in the same color as the background. If I had used black, he would have looked squeezed on there.
Did I mention I don’t like making something to a specific size requirement?
Setting the Mood
011 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Design
Today I escaped from my house to the fabric store — the one closest to me — Tiny Stitches. If you remember, this is what I started with — a yellow green. The more I looked at it, the more I didn’t like it. It’s too yellow for me.
This piece really relies on the background to set the mood — and this yellow green takes too much away from the cardinal.
So I went back to my color wheel — and found something strange. I have two color wheels. One says that the opposite of red is green — the other one says that it’s cyan. The plot thickens.
So I pulled this light cyan from my stash. It’s not quite right either.
So I went to the store — the batik section — and started laying bolts on the ground and then laying my appliqué on top. I’m fortunate that it’s so small — I can’t usually carry my appliqué work in a folder.
This is nice but feels urban to me — not what I’m going for. It’s just a little too distracting.
And this is the green that should work — except it doesn’t.
This one is a little better — but it still doesn’t make the bird sing.
And then I pulled out this blue green. I liked it a lot more. It’s a good value change and sets off the cardinal nicely. So I carried this bolt around for a while and started walking through the aisles — because sometimes you can find interesting things in places you wouldn’t think to look — so it helps to go exploring.
Wow. A print. It is also a light blue green.
This is the same pattern in a darker color — too dark for the cardinal.
So at this point, I looked at all of the pics on my phone and I really loved the blue green print — but I thought I should try one more green batik. No — it just doesn’t work for me. It’s the right value and the print is the right proportion — but it isn’t for me.
So I lost a couple of days — but I now have the right background — the light blue green print. Better to change it now than wish I had later.
Cardinal Longing
111 years ago
After I finished Worry, I had no idea what my next project would be. I get so involved in one project that I don’t tend to think ahead to the next — can’t really split my focus. I concentrate on one thing to the exclusion of other things.
But when I was done, I decided to make a small piece for the SouthEast Fiber Arts Alliance (SEFAA) Square Foot Fiber Art Pin Up Show. No theme — the piece just has to be 12×12 or smaller. I don’t usually work in this small scale — but I needed a rest and working on a small piece seemed like a good way to do that.
I had seen many pictures of cardinals in the snow being posted on Facebook — and I think that this is what I had in my mind’s eye when I began — a piece of hope flying across the frozen tundra (a little melodramatic, but we’re currently iced in for the second time in a couple of weeks and this southern girl is more acclimated to sunshine than snow.)
So I searched through all my reds and picked out a decent range. I wasn’t really happy with my first value — but then, what could I do? The weather was too iffy for me to risk a trip over to Marietta to pick out fabric — so I was limited to what I had on hand.
Just as I was getting ready to iron my WonderUnder templates down, I had the funny realization that I had paid for both sides of my fabric (obvious, I know, but a fact often overlooked) — so I ironed the templates to the front — so the back would show — which was exactly the shade I needed for the first value.
This is the second value — you can begin to see the outline of the cardinal.
The third value gives you even more — although I should have added to the lighting in the room before I took my pics.
The fourth value was all I got done before I heard that the news was telling me (I had the TV on while I was ironing) that I might lose power for several days — and I realized I needed to add a few things to my pantry. It was at this point that I ran out the door with fading daylight before the roads became truly impassable the next day (and they did).
I returned to this yesterday and added values five and six — the sixth one being black. Not bad but I really miss the eye.
Again, other blurry shot. I think the ISO on the camera I was using was way down — but you can see how I built up the eye in a similar way to the eye on The White Raven. I did add a larger highlight than I usually do — this guy has a small eye and the light coming off it gave the impression of the dimension of the eyeball.
Once he was done, I added the branches. I thought about adding a bunch of detail and then decided that it was so small, it made more sense to let the fabric do the work for me — so I found a brown wood batik and fussy cut it so I roughly had highlights and shadows where I wanted them.
And finally, I added his claws. They are really similar in tone to the branch — and I decided to stay with that. I used a purple with a lot of gray in it — but they are obviously the same value as the branch. I’ll define them more with texture in the quilting stage.
The last part is to add a background. This was my first pick. It’s a really bright acid green but it makes the cardinal pop. I tried other greens from my stash — but the greens with more gray in them make the cardinal more sedate — more like it’s a common wildlife scene.
And I could try something other than green — but the color wheel shows the green is the best choice — and holding up colors — it’s the one that makes the most sense visually — even if I did originally imagine more white and gray blues.
I’m not sold on this yet. I would love it if I could go to store and see if I could find something better — or validate my choice here — but there is still too much ice on the roads. I may go ahead for something to do. Sewing is a good antidote for cabin fever.
Worry Completed
011 years ago
This week I was intent on finishing my latest piece Worry. I quilted the background and then applied the binding. The hand work is getting harder for me to do. I’m a fairly thin skinned person and piercing my fingers with an extremely sharp needle seem masochistic at best — and my eyes are beginning to struggle to see the tiny stitches. I have only machine applied one binding but I may revisit that on my next piece.
You may have noticed that I missed Wordless Wednesday. That’s because I didn’t think about it until Thursday — and at that point, I felt like it was just too late.
Yesterday I finished sewing on the sleeve and blocking it — and today it was dry enough for me to take pictures. I took some for the website — but I’ve about decided it’s time I buy a photographic background stand. I have two design walls made from creosote that have black flannel taped to them which I have used for both blocking and a photography background. I started using them for blocking after I moved here when I discovered that you can’t pin into looped carpet — but sadly, blocking it warps the creosote — which wreaks havoc on the photographs if you’re using the same surface as a back drop. I have learned all the tricks in Photoshop Elements to straighten a pic. Once I realized that water was warping it, I kept one for blocking and the other for photography. Sadly, the one I kept for photography has still warped.
So I intend to order a photography stand this week and re-photograph the pieces I’ve done this year. I probably won’t re-do the images on the website — but I’ll have the proper pics for exhibition entries and publication opportunities.
Quilting Gadgets
011 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Quilting
Having finally finished the appliqué for the family portrait I’ve been working on, I pinned the piece with batting and backing — and then began to prepare myself mentally to begin quilting.
This is always the hardest part for me. I will put it off and find a hundred excuses not to get started. I think that the fear stems from the dislike of UN-sewing — an inevitability of the quilting process. I have, however, discovered that a good way to move me through this stage and get back to the machine is to print off the value painting I made earlier and start drawing quilting ideas on it. If I don’t like the direction of a particular area, all I have to do is erase it. Then when I sit at my machine, the drawing sits beside me and tells me where I need to go.
(Forgive the print — it came out in a pinkish hue because I was running out of black ink.)
I did have a problem when I sat down at my machine though. I have a Viking Designer 1 — and the truth of the matter is that it has given me problems since year 4 (it’s about 13 years old now). I had taken it in to the dealer for a cleaning — and she kept it for MONTHS (did I mention I didn’t have a backup machine?) — and when I FINALLY got it back, the touch screen menu didn’t always do what it was supposed to do. I could always reset it by turning it off and on — and I certainly didn’t want THAT dealer to touch it again (and Viking wouldn’t let me use anyone else) — so I had to wait until sometime after year 5 after she had gone out of business before I let someone look at it again (I still have trust issues with someone having my machine for any length of time).
I thought when I bought it that it was warranted for 20 years — and I considered it a good 20 year investment piece. However, I learned the hard way that the electronics were only covered for 5 years. And did I mention that the cost of replacing the motherboard is about $1,200?
Anyway, I’ve just lived with it — but when I sat down on Thursday to start quilting, it just wouldn’t behave. However, I have another Designer 1 that a friend gave me years ago (after hearing me complain about mine — she thought hers would be kinder to me) — so I took everything and set it up on that machine. I turned it on — and learned that it had grown unhappy over the last few months — watching me sew away on my other machine. That machine’s screen doesn’t work — at all. Not even a little.
I went back to my original machine and finally got it back in business. (And since then, it’s been working really well. It must know that I’ve been looking at other machines on the internet.)
And why all of this drama? Well — I have to come clean here. The truth is that I’ve been quilting with my feed dogs up for years. I KNOW! Crazy as it sounds, when I was first starting out, I was having problems and someone suggested just leaving them up — so I did and it helped and it’s been that way ever since.
Except when I was quilting my last piece, Golden Moment, it was sooooo heavy and it was hard to move around — so I was persuaded to try Leah Day‘s Ultimate Quilting Kit — a Supreme Slider, Machinger gloves, and Little Genie teflon bobbin washers.
By the time the set came, I had just finished quilting — but I knew the day would come that I’d really enjoy using them — and that day was Thursday.
Except — in order to use the Supreme Slider, the feed dogs have to be down. You don’t want it to accidentally slide out of position (which the feed dogs might do) and start being quilted to the underside of your piece. That would be REALLY bad.
Hence the sewing machine problems. I had lowered the feed dogs to set up the machine only to realize I had a couple of appliqué fixes to make — so I had to raise the feed dogs — which they didn’t want to do.
The sewing machine argument aside — I enjoyed the gadgets. The teflon washer that you drop in the bobbin case really does cut down on the out of control speed spinning that the bobbin can sometimes do when you’re quilting fast. The Machinger gloves help me hold onto the quilt — but they’re going to take some getting used to. (It’s awkward when I have to start a new line and pull the bottom thread to the top with the gloves on — I end up with a lot more thread pulled than I’m used to.) The Slider also helps move the quilt around easily — although I’ll be able to evaluate the drag on the needle better when I get to the edges of the quilt. (I started quilting in the middle which keeps most of the quilt on the table so there’s not much drag at this point.)
Quilting with the feed dogs down does feel a lot different — I can tell that I have a higher chance of messing up the intentionality of the line if I’m not extra careful. I might try decreasing the presser foot tension the next time I sit at the machine.
There’s a learning curve in everything new — but I think that these are good things to learn.
Today, I managed to finish quilting the mom in my piece — except for her hair and clothes.
I am worried about my sewing machine. I don’t know that I’ll ever want to buy another Viking given the customer service problems I’ve had with them — but nor do I relish the thought of learning an entirely new machine.
My friend Rebecca has a Janome 5500 that I may borrow for a while — so I can try another something new.
Applique Beginnings
111 years ago
Once break was over and the girls returned to school on Tuesday morning, I hit the studio and I’ve been working like crazy ever since.
I finished fusing the baby’s blanket — the last fusing section — and then I moved into fusing the larger pieces onto the muslin to begin appliquéing.
I did have a moment when I was working on the mom that I thought I should have kept her in smaller pieces — her face, her hair, her lower body, her jacket — but I fused whole people together and I was just going to have to live with everything trying to fall off as I started the appliqué process.
I laid my value study on the floor and covered it with muslin, cutting it to fit.
Using the drawing behind as a guide, I laid down the mother and fused her right down onto the muslin on the floor.
I started with her arm but quickly moved into whatever fabric didn’t want to hold onto the fusible the most. I can iron as I go — but squinching (new word?) the fabric under the harp of the machine can wreak havoc on your relationship with your fusible. Bottom line — fusible is a temporary relationship. Everything has to be sewn down.
I do use Wonder Under — and they’ve obviously recently changed the formula. Everyone raves about Misty Fuse — I’m not sure I could get used to something I can’t easily buy and that isn’t already paper backed — but one day I may give it a try. My feelings about Wonder Under vary with the complexity of the project.
Also — I made a command decision on this piece. After having gone to IQF/Houston & realized that I’m one of the few remaining artists that feels the need to cover raw edges — I’ve changed my strategy. A little, anyway. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it altogether. As I said, given the size & complexity of my appliqué shapes — if I fused the entire thing down & started to free motion quilt — I would have chaos on my hands. I did, however, compromise with a free motion zigzag. This is my first time with this stitch but given that I free motion quilt with the feed dogs up — it wasn’t much different — it gave me a little more control. And it’s faster — which is the biggest thing.
This is the woman after I finished appliquéing her this morning — from the back.
Once she was done, I fused her son to her left. He is also a complete fused piece. I started appliquéing him this morning — and will probably finish him in my next studio time (since it’s Friday, there’s no telling when that will be.)
2014 Goals
111 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Goals
The girls finally went back to school today & I’ve pulled together my goals for the year. I reserve the right to alter these as the year progresses — but hopefully I can get close to my goals.
Lincoln
– Make 2014 goals.
– Refine spreadsheet to monitor goals and progress (create one for 2014).
– Print blog books: 2009, 2010, 2011. One day I’ll catch up. I have all books through 2012 ready to print — it’s really just a matter of sending them to the printer.
– Change all icon references to eye on business card. Years ago, I made a small card with the blue eye of a pic I took — which I then used as my online icon — but last year I made business cards with a different eye. I need to change all of the online references.
– Update personal FB Page with new banner from business page.
– Increase web traffic 5%. Experience has shown me that this is a really hard stat to move. The biggest jump I’ve had in the site was from having my blog listed in the top 55 blogs by Quilter’s Home Magazine in 2011. Last year, I had work in two books and a magazine and traffic only increased just under 6%.
– Complete at least 6 large pieces.
– Participate in Journal52 with at least 40 journal entries. I have several journals lying around the studio but I’ve never participated in a regular one with a group so I thought I’d try it. My work is very different from the paper collage artists though — I may just show my pages on the Facebook Page or in blog posts.
– Enter at least 6 exhibitions. This is really a function of funding. I would love to enter everything under the sun but I can’t.
– Learn how to use the camera lucida. I bought one of these in a Kickstarter campaign and gave it to myself for Christmas. I haven’t had time to play with it yet though.
– Apply for SAQA Professional membership.
– Publish at least 2 blog posts per week. This is a big one for me. I think I may start another weekly concept post — maybe Wordless Wednesday. I think it would motivate me to work on my photography skills.
– Write at least 4 FaceBook posts per week (professional Page). Last year my goal was 3 per week — much easier than I thought it would be.
– Write at least 6 Twitter posts per week. My Twitter persona is about passing along information to other Creatives. In my reading, I find a lot of articles and encouragements that I think are helpful to others.
– Spend at least 15 hours per week in the studio. I thought about making this 20 — but the truth is that life gets in the way. Some weeks I can make 20 easy — some weeks I won’t come close to 15.
– Sell at least 2 of my pieces. I really debated whether or not to put this one on here — but I consider last year very successful in terms of making marketable work. I sold 3 of the 6 pieces I made — and I think that 2 of them will also be sold but just haven’t been exhibited enough yet. Time will tell. Concentrating on making work that I know is marketable subject matter is something I plan to continue.
I don’t have a goal to win anything or be published but I accept any of those opportunities fate throws my way. Maybe I should consider those more aspirations than goals. I also accept speaking engagements & lead workshops if they aren’t too far from home.
Here’s to a prosperous year! Let’s go forth with hope in our hearts and the wind of determination beneath our wings!