Full Plates

The house is filled with the aroma of the corned beef and cabbage that my sweetie has been cooking all afternoon, so it's difficult to write without analogies of food popping into my head. In particular, I'm struck by how--as is typical for me--my artistic plate is full of yummy, satisfying projects. Here are some of the things I've been working on since my last post:



I'm taking Ellen Lindner's online class, Instant Art Quilts. We begin with a high-contrast fabric and chop it up and arrange the pieces. The pic on the left is the fabric I dyed for the class; the pic on the left is the arrangement, which awaits next week's lesson on accents. This was so quick and easy, and so much fun, that I've dyed more fabric and started another "instant art quilt."



I'm also taking another of Marjie McWilliams classes at Quilt U: Shibori Dyeing. Last week we worked on "Arashi" dyeing, which apparently means "storm" in Japanese. and here are the results. The pic to the left is dyed silk velvet, and on the right is habotai.



This week we're working on "Suji" dyeing, which is all about pleating and folding. The results are below. The first piece is cotton, the second is a chiffon scarf, and the third is a piece of silk that I had previously stamped with thickened blue dye. Today, I folded it and overdyed it with a light red and a deep yellow.