Natural Dyed Silk Cocoons

I'm finally getting caught up on things and am just now getting the colors I need for the silk cocoons, two shades of purple and a sand color. This weekend will be spent pursuing lavender, bright red, dark green, and orange, and maybe a soft yellow. Someday I hope to be caught up again. Until then the rest of today is filled with meetings and the like.

Etsy

Severeal of you asked where you could buy my postcards, and it wasn't working out to sell them on the webstore, so I created anEtsy account. It was really fast and really easy, far easier than it was to figure out how to use Ebay. I've sold things on ebay but always struggled with listing each item.

Anyway, I have post cards and four small art quilts posted on my Etsy store, check it out. Yes I take paypal.

Whooooohoooooooo!

I finally got it onto DVD, and it works in the dvd player attached to the tv at that! What is that you might be asking??? My Mark Making with Nature: Surface Design with Natural Dyes DVD!

I finally broke down, and spent next months grocery money, on Pinnacle Studio Titanium last night at Best Buy. Which reminds me there's a rebate attached to the box. Soooooo I will be cranking out the rest of the video tonight - I finally learned how to make Menus and the like, and hopefully will be shipping come Saturday!

Oh and in case you were worried that all there is was a dumb ole dvd well there's a book attached to one of the dvd's with embedded video clips as well! You can purchase the DVD at my webstore The Prairie Fibers Company which by the way the DVD is currently 40% off, so enjoy>

I"m planning on putting clips here and on the webstore as well, hopefully before the weekend is out. Technology can be good, and can be overwhelming at times.

Well a girl can dream!

A little bit of the Prairie & A little bit of the Plains.

Somewhere between the edge of the prairie and the plains lives

A land of cows, horses and sheep

Amongst the big bluestem and a riot of flowers.

A Girl Can Dream Right

A little bit of the Prairie & a little bit of the Plains.

Somewhere between the edge of the prairie and the plains

Lives a land of cows, horses, and sheep

Amongst the big bluestem and a riot of flowers.


I spent the better part of today sitting in at a craft show, I had a lot of looky loos but no takers. I did give a few business cards away though. Next year I will have a tent outside and can sell my wares out on the street with the rest of the vendors. Of course next year I plan to participate in the Octagons Open Studio Tour as well.

40% Off Business Reduction Sale

40% off Storewide Sale at The Prairie Fibers Company this percentage does not include online classes or artwork.

I'm wanting to get back into my studio and my students (which I dearly miss), and move away from the retail side of the business, I'm selling off my remaining invetory, when it's gone it's gone, so come on by and take a peak. Some one-of items have been further reduced to help move them along to a good home.

Please note that because this is a one woman business orders can be slow in being filled.

Thank you - Kimberly

40% Off Business Reduction Sale

40% off Storewide Sale at The Prairie Fibers Company this percentage does not include online classes or artwork.

I'm wanting to get back into my studio and my students (which I dearly miss), and move away from the retail side of the business, I'm selling off my remaining invetory, when it's gone it's gone, so come on by and take a peak. Some one-of items have been further reduced to help move them along to a good home.

Please note that because this is a one woman business orders can be slow in being filled.

Thank you - Kimberly

Truck

Well the truck is fixed, it was the distributor of all things. This is a good thing as this means it's not the transmission and all of the money I saved fixing the truck can now go to replacing the fridgerator - which currently sounds like a blender grinding rocks!

I think this falls into one of those "when it rains it pours" kinda weeks. The up side is I fed my husband acorn squash for dinner and he loved it. Of course it helps that I didn't drown it in brown sugar and butter. For some reason that makes it rather stringy. Instead I went with the lightly baked and then baked again filled with sausage stuffing. I know he really liked it as I didn't have to ask, and he told me - voluntarily - three times, translation I can fix this meal again.

As a treat he's making bread pudding for us - YUM!!!

PSA

Normally I don't give PSA's but today I'm going to.

If you don't normally come to a full stop at a stop sign, because you think you are invincible or you don't think it can happen to you do so anyway!

Last night friends of ours were killed in a car accident when a young fella in a pick up truck slammed into the side of their car - he never even slowed down.

Also teach your youngsters to stop at stop signs! '

Thank you.

New Artwork

I was updating my art website tonight and I feel a little bit less incompetent now. I think it comes with not having produced any finished works for awhile, and what work I have done is in sorry need of being photographed.

www.kbaxterpackwood.com

Update

I'm here, just been filling orders like crazy, and trying to figure out video editing! I got everything done and the dumb video won't convert over to DVD, hopefully we will have that figured out tonight so we can start shipping next week. If one wanted to play it only on a PC it'll work, unfortunately this won't fly with Mac users, so I need to get the issue worked out before hand - it's just far easier and cheaper to do it right the first time.

And then there's the silk cocoons, I can count to 30!!! I've been packaging the cocoons, I ran out and now am having to package them again, it's a lot of work it doesn't sound like it but the little buggers stick to EVERYTHING!

Here's a pic to tide you over until next week.

Potential Possibles Bag

Here's an in progress bag (possibles bag), I have visions of embellishing this baby, or it may just end up being my proto-type as I was unable to find a pattern. The bag measures about 10" w x 7.5" tall by 2" deep. It was a bear to sew this on my machine, I'll be bringing dad's old gear driven Singer into the house - it's in the garage right now - it's designed to sew leather. Both of my Janomes need to go into the shop, the 6500 has decided to stop working all together now - not good.

I made this late last night, instead of sleeping, so it does look a little wonky today. The fringe needs to be wetted out and twisted so it has that softer look, and I still haven't decided on the strap. It's a commercially tanned elk hide(buck skin?), has that smooth suede feeling on both sides. The next piece will be from brain tanned buck skin - much easier to work with.

Inspire Me

Check out my new blog and soon to be new webstore Cowgirl-Chic

The Move

I moved all of the family information over here, and here you can keep up with my brisk house remodel! I'm hoping to have the kitchen floor ordered and soon, I've chosen a black and white Armstrong commercial lineoulem tile (the color goes all the way through making it a dog friendly tile). John and I will install it ourselves, after we gut the kitchen out!

Today I cleaned out the north bedroom, I can sit in there again, John is right it's a really peaceful room. Plus Brenda now has a place to stay while we are out of town. The downside is I put everything in my studio, which is an incentive to go through it and give away the stuff I don't need, or failed to pitch earlier.

I'm almost done painting the bathroom - ok this is a once a year occurance which seems to coincide with a really deep cleaning of said bath. I painted it a pale apple green color, John needs to finish cutting in the area above the bath tub for me.

I'll be sure to take pictures.

This weekend I'm working on our bedroom - starting with vacuuming everything and then getting the stuff that goes on the walls hung up again. I have one and a half walls that need painting yet.

Blog Update

For family members who check this site regularly and wonder what the hay! I moved everything over to my personal blog

Survival Kitchen

Where's Your Orders???

Ok I had a slug, actually more like a ton, orders on August 9th, I just finished those up this week and am working my way through the rest of the orders now. I'm hoping to have most everything sent out by Monday or Tuesday of next week. It's a one woman operation here and with a bum knee slow going at times.

Also please note that if you ordered Shiva Paintstiks or Rubbing Plates these are on backorder until after the 15th of September as my distributor is out of the office until then - there was an inventory glitch with the shopping cart. FYI I will continue to carry the Shiva's in the future.

Silk Cocoons - If you ordered Dyed Cocoons I'm dyeing them up, dyeing them with natural dyes takes some time as they need to sit in the dye pot for at least a day and sometimes longer if they require more than one dye stuff to achieve the color - black is a good example of this. To get black I dip them 8 times in indigo, over dye with Osage Orange and then over dye them with Cochineal or Madder Root - and sometimes I still end up with a wildy cool green or grey color instead

Beaver Creek VI

Beaver Creek VI

If your interested in Primitive Skills then check out this event in Nebraska. I will be there demoing natural dyes,using prairie plants, and some pigment usage.

Dye Painted Silk Samples

Silk Organza, that was ghosted - read my book to learn the techniques

Silk crepe de chine

More samples

Another spill rag that I in turn monoprinted onto which turned out quite nice!

A piece of yardage that ended being used as a shop rag when I spilled a bunch of dyes!

Pole wrapped and indigo over dye of compost dyed cotton

Monoprinting and direct application of natural dye colors.



These are the samples I made, during the demonstration section of the class I taught, at Peters Valley. I finally washed them last night. They still need to be ironed

Untilted Update

I am putting more color into this piece, I have a few more hours worth of work and then it needs to cure, luckily it's warm enough outside right now to put it out on the line to cure and quite quickly at that.

Hopefully I have the dyes dark enough this time, I did some test swatches and it appears that the colors are indeed dark enough, I'll know in a week.

Inspire Me

This is what I do when I'm up late due to hot flashes, I paint. It was swatches for my Inspire Me series the other night. I have the still life to draw and then I will rearrange it, and since it is living on my sewing table, the still life that is, I will be drawing it this afternoon. Then I'll rearrange it, draw it again, and then take the whole she-bang down - much to the chagrin of my tabby cat who is absolutely in love with the still life.

Detail Shot

It's there, the original printing, I just mixed it up too light as a result it looks really faded. I'm mixing up more purples, reds, blood reds, and a touch of prairie, I don't know how to explain the color but will do test samples first to make sure I get the correct depth of shade this time.

Here it Is

Before washing on the left,and after washing on the right. Now to mix up more print paste and go collect my grasses and flowers to add more depth to the piece.

I finally got my wet studio computer hooked up, I had to swap out computers as this one is not fast or big enough to edit video on. I feel like I can actually get something done now that it's hooked up again.

Oh and blogger is being a royal pain today, it seems to know better than I what I want to type.

Untitled Piece

First off, WOW blogger is really slow today. If it'll let me later on I will post pics of the fabric I was working on earlier. Remember I was rather unhappy about the swallows, well I'm very pleased that the color ended up being very muted, so you can barley see the swallows - and actually they look really nice now. The down side is all of the other printing I did is also very muted so now I will have to reprint those areas with darker colors. I think this piece is going to be a lot of fun when all is said and done though.

Inspire Me Article

I'm working on my newest article. Hopefully the editors won't make a mockery of the article content this time by adding their own comments. After the incident with Quilter's Home Magazine I have to admit to being rather hesitant about writing another article for anybody!

I need to work on lighting for my imagery, but I think you get the point. This means digging out the tripod, the lights with the filters, setting up the camera and metering, always a lot of work, but well worth the effort.

As I fight a very percious 5 year old tabby cat, Pepper, it reminds me that I really really need a studio that is seperate from everyone else in the house. Said tabby is absolutely in love with my still life and cannot understand why I don't want him sleeping in the middle of said still life.