What I've Been Up To

Check out my studio blog to see what I've been up too. Now I'm tired and am going to call it a night.

http://www.kbaxterpackwood.blogspot.com

Oops Forgot

To post this picture of gelatin plate printed fabric, this is metallic paints on cochineal dyed cotton fabrics.

Goodies

Been raiding my stash for making constructed bags and scarves. Here's a pic of some silk paper, and various yarns I've been using. As you can see my palette is very bright these days.

Silk Fusion Bag

Here's a pic of a silk fusion bag I've been working on, I made the fabric several weeks ago when I taught the silk fusion workshop. I'll post more pictures later, I have an extreme embroidery class to get ready for tomorrow night.

Gelatin Plate

Color on Laces and Such, note that the color is now gone from the gelatin plate itself

Gelatin Plate

This is the layout of laces on the gelatin plate that I used to create the fabric.

Peak Under

A little peak under the wonder under.

More Photos

Metallic paints on Wonder Under layered over angelina and thread couched felt.

In Progress

this is what the bag looked like before it became a bag!

Finished Clutch

Remeber those? This one is comprized of melted tyvek, angelina, felt, couched threads and yarns and was melted with a heat gun. I lined it with a soft copper colored polyester organza.

New Work

Well sorta, I've been fermenting on this idea for some time, in fact these are just the color studies for the actual piece that is hanging on my studio wall - and it's 9 x 10 feet, yep 9 x 10 feet (which translates roughly into king size for the quilters out there).

These pieces, Hot Poppies, are a set, free stitching on painted timtex and they really are this bright! I'm making prints and they will be available on my etsy.com store - see little etsy icon to the left. They look much better in person but I am having a hard time with the bright colors and contrast, I actually tried fixing it in Photoshop to no avail. I even scanned them in, they looked really bad then, even with some adjustments to contrast and the like. Tis the bane of photographing bright,high contrast, art.

Signs Up

The sign is up on the shop that is and I'll take a picture of it tomorrow as I only got a partial picture today. Here's a pic, from inside of the store, of hubby, on the right, and our neighbor, sitting on the scaffolding putting the last of the screws into the sign.

Btw - blogger is having some problems tonight so if you thought it was you it probably isn't!

Prairie Calling

Graze 5 x 7 inches

Youth at Dusk - 5 x 5 inches square

I've been too busy to make it over to Neil Smith Prairie so I decided to take some time and play with some images I took last year during rut season. I photographed approximately 30-40 young male bisons, all competing for the hearts - ahemmmm - of a few females.

Prints of these images are available on my etsy.com store see little panel to the left to get there. Speaking of Etsy.com I joined the Iowa Street Team - it's a Yahoo list, and Wow there are a lot of Etsy people in my neck of the woods, which is really exciting!

Thomas

Ok ignore the messy bed he was too cute to disturb to clean up for a good shot!

Drawing Etc

I'm on a drawing jag again, you'll probably be able to catch glimpses of this over on my studio blog as this has nothing to do with natural dyeing or surface design which I prefer to keep on this blog.

I'm planning on embroidering my flowers, again catch my other blog for details.

Without cable there's not a whole lot on TV to watch, can't wait until next Friday when Men in Trees and Pushing up Daisies will be on again!

Needle Felted Pumpkins

I'll have to take more photos tomorrow, the class went really well today. I ended up with only one student which was fine as she left with a really lovely pumpkin, I made one with her to show her the techniques. I'm thinking of video taping this and putting it on YouTube.com as there are some important tips to know about needle felting a 3D pumpkin, like keeping your fingers out of the way! Sounds easy enough but in reality it can be really problematic, I'm thinking of getting a bunch of tongue depressors for the next class, amongst other things. Luckily it was me that got stuck with the needle, twice I might add.

Looks like I won't be able to add photos until later the photo launcher is apparently broken!

Well I'm off to make some constructed cloth bags for the next class, later.

Busy Busy

Image of our new sitting area in the shop for people to come Stitch and Knit with us Mon - Fri what can I say I'm here six to seven days a week so "YES" I'm very proud of the place and wanted a place where even I could sit and stitch for awhile.

Today I updated the website and sent out a new newsletter, sounds like a lot but in reality all I did was sit in front of a computer all day. I really have to be in the mood to work on the computer, the code and everything else just seems to consume so much of my time.

I rinsed my dyed wool yarns, and mohair rovings tonight, I still need to dye more colors, deep burgandy, deep forest green, navy blue, black, etc... It's a never ending dye pot is what it seems like, AND I'm running out of roving! What's a woman to do??? I'm hoping what I have hanging on the drying rack will be dry enough to take to the shop in the morning.

Tomorrow I'm teaching a pumpking needle felting class at the shop, it'll be a lot of fun I'm sure, finally I'm doing something creative. Sunday I've plans to work on the back yard, since it finally stopped raining, and maybe even rust some fibers and fabrics.

For Inspiration

Recieved these two books today check them out!

The Uncommon Quilter: Small Art Quilts with Paper, Plastic, Fiber, and Surface Design by Jeanne Williamson

The Painted Quilt: Paint and Print Techniques for Color on Quilts by Linda & Laura Kemshall

I need to get out and get some air, at the prairie preferably, but it's been raining and a lot so I think that may be out of the question, plus I have to work tomorrow anyway, maybe on Sunday.

Extreme Embroidery 2

Tonights class went really well, it was the last night for this particular class and the students were either finished with their pieces or were nearing being finished.

They are continuing on to Extreme Embroidery 3, which I'm doing completely differently. Every 15 minutes we will do a different technique, for two hours - three Tuesdays. During the first class we will do silk fusion so we can make them into bags or wall hangings in class two. I'll try to remember to post photos tomorrow of the piece I made for EE2.

Now I"m on to making constructed cloth bags, for an upcoming class, and wine bottle gift bags, again for another upcoming class. Oh and then there's the constructed cloth scarves, and the painted scarf class.

I'm going to be busy making holiday samples for the shop windows as well so if you don't hear from me I'm probably asleep in front of my sewing machine, or my Janome Expression.

New Lovelies in My Shop

I relisted some of my silk carrier rods, dyed in oranges and blacks, in my etsy.com store (http://www.kbaxterpackwood.etsy.com) These have been dyed with acid dyes as are the rest of the fibers I will be listing later today, degummed silk throwster's waste, silk throwster's waste, and silk cocoons. Some of the silk cocoons and silk carrier rods HAVE been dyed with natural dyes, and because of the work/time involved they are a bit more in price.

Today

Well I didn't get as much done as I had hoped, once again the printer proved to be a major PITA!!! I was finally able to print off the book covers, after having Brenda and Loretta look at the silly printer for me, they were able to find "section D" that was supposedly jammed, but wasn't.

I named the printer Simon because it's a whiney know it all! It "thinks" it has jams when in reality it does NOT! It's also insistant on printing it's own way, you tell it landscape and it's very insistant you meant portrait. I love the print quality, when it actually prints, in case you were wondering it's a Savin CLP240D that I'm leasing. The clarity of the images is out of this world, again when the machine doesn't have it's own agenda. I wish I could say it's operator error but I'm finding out that it's not "just me".

Blood River Canyon 2 & 3

These three pieces, Blood River Canyon 1, 2 & 3, are available for sale on my Etsy.com store. http://www.kbaxterpackwood.etsy.com

Storque Showcase & Rust Dyeing Workshop

Duh, is all I can say I couldn't figure out why I'm in the Storque Showcase already, however, it just occurred to me that it's midnight already on the east coast!

http://www.etsy.com/showcase.php?showcase_id=5&show_panel=true&show_panel=true

My piece Blood River Canyon is on the showcase tonight. I definately need to get better pictures of these quilts. I found my digital camera, need to find the extra batteries, and it's charging so I can do so tomorrow.

I plan to get my Rust Dyeing Workshop listed on my etsy.com store either tomorrow or on Tuesday. It all depends on how many times I'm interrupted, the workshop is on DVD.

Scarf for quilt

Here's one of the scarves for my next quilt project, this photograph does NOT do the scarf justice at all!

Studio time

I wish I could spend more time in my studio this week, right now it boils down to making samples for classes. I'm not sure why but it seems that one can never make enough samples!

I have a new quilt in mind, it's been fermenting for awhile, I had hoped to get it done for my Etsy.com showcase day, that's today btw, but alas it never happened. Tis ok I have a showcase day, in the Storque, on the 15th, maybe I'll get it done then! Meanwhile I have some scarves I plan to cut up and use in the piece, I'll have to check my files to see if I have a photo of said scarves on hand or not, otherwise I'll have to take their pictures first. It's fabric I compost dyed sometime back, very beautiful stuff, looks like the sunset on water on a clear spring day when everything is crisp and clear.

Blog Change

I'm debating on how to change my blog, I see several I like on the net but am not sure I'm that I want to move over to typepad, so for now I'll just play around with this blogs format and maybe go with some fall like colors, or not. What I'd really like is to have some of my fabric as the background for my blog, behind the blog boxes, but have no clue how to do this.