Book Review - Fabric Printing at Home by Julie B. Booth!

I'm delighted to review Fabric Printing at Home: Quick and Easy Fabric Design Using Fresh Produce and Found Objects by Julie B. Booth! This book is dedicated to surface design using everyday common items with no need to buy expensive tools. Julie helps you recognize objects around your home that will make a cool print... trust me - you will never look at pasta, cardboard, string, fruit or erasers in the same way again! 

Julie's clear, conscience and easy to follow instructions give you the confidence and knowledge base to create your own collection of printed fabric. Julie shares what she's learned from her many years of experimentation and teaching. The book is filled with creative but practical solutions to printing fabric in your home space. 

Sneak peek at the chapters offered:

Getting Started

Kitchen Textures and Found Object Printing

Beyond the Potato Print

Wrap It Up! – Wraps and Foils

Recycled and Repurposed

Fabric Resists Using Kitchen Ingredients

Contributing Artists

The book is available through QBook and Amazon. This book is a "must" for every studio and I encourage you to share the review with all your creative friends! Follow Julie's continuing ideas and techniques by clicking here.

The Printed Fabric Bee + Quilting Arts = Inspiration!

Fellow Printed Fabric Bee member Lynn Krawczyk, wrote a fabulous article about something every artist has struggled with: Finding Your Artistic Voice.  Do you feel that you have found your artist voice?  What helped you to find it?  Or do you feel like you are still working on it?  Pick up the Dec/Jan Quilting Arts Magazine and see if the article resonates with you! 

Holiday Piece #1 - it has begun!

I took a "personal" day from my full time job today for some much needed downtime. I woke up at 5:00 AM just thinking about the possibilities the day could bring! 

I headed into the studio with the coffee pot and was quickly immersed in creative energy! My goal was to design a piece of wall art that was very simplistic but still recognizable as Christmas. I pulled fabrics from my stash and settled on a red/black fabric that had been ice dyed twice for the background. Next I chose a hand painted/stenciled fabric that was "challenged". By challenged I mean the overall design was a bit too strong in a one yard piece. Sometimes those wild-child fabrics are more manageable in smaller sizes! 

The quilting is also minimal... just enough to create some texture.  

I stretched the piece over an up-cycled stretcher bars and BOOM - on the wall it goes! 

CT Surface Design Association Exhibition - 1 Down with Many More to Come!

On Saturday I had the pleasure of exhibiting with members from Connecticut's chapter of the Surface Design Association. For the past month we had been showing our work at the Mark Twain Library in Redding, CT. Saturday was the day for the artists to host a meet and greet with the community - we met many wonderful people who were sincerely interested in the art work! This is the first exhibition for the chapter and I'm super impressed with the members commitment and level of enthusiasm for connecting with the community through their art work.

Leslie Giulani and her Outlander inspired knitwear and cashmere collection. 

Alicia Caraballo shows her wears! 

This is the "Carol" corner! Felter Carol Ingram's work is to the left
and my work is behind it on the right! 

Co-rep's Ellen Schiffman and June Myles can be seen zipping around making sure the event was going smoothly. They are in the upper right with June wearing a blue vest and Ellen wearing a gray top. They did a fabulous job! 

Please click on the artists name to view their work! 

Chocolate and Caffeine!

Chocolate and caffeine are my not so secret pleasures! Even my self portrait highlights chocolate and caffeine... look closely at the fabrics to the left and you can see their influence! Since I am the proud owner of a new thermofax screen highlighting these elements I have an unexplained need to create more and more fabric showcasing this indulgence - it's ok not to make sense! 

The screen was created by fiber artist Terri Stegmiller. She is a fabulous fiber artist and I encourage you to hop over to her website to view her lovely artwork and shop in her Etsy store!

My buddy Roz Spann created this lovely rusted fabric piece that I've been holding onto for a special occasion. It's the perfect "hue" to go with the chocolate and caffeine feel so here you have it! 

The screen is used like any typical silk screen in a frame. The bonus with a thermofax screen is that it's reusable! 

It's always a thrill to lift the screen to find the treasure! 

Here is the completed piece... love... love Roz's rusted piece! 

Detail of my happy elements - I have the sudden urge to have a piece of chocolate with my coffee! 

Time for a Printed Fabric Bee Giveaway!

Yippee! The Printed Fabric Bee is having another custom fabric giveaway! Sorry about the missing photos - many members have been to Quilt Market so their fabric photos will be available soon! 

 Jackie Lams of Studio Lams was the "queen" for October and she chose science as her theme. Jackie says she has always been fascinated by the design of anything at the microscopic level... plants, chemicals, different objects. Jackie feels they all have unique and beautiful designs when viewed through a microscope. She was excited to see how the Printed Fabric Bee artists would translate that into a surface design idea.

The only direction was "no pastels". I was super excited since I love science but as I worked through designs in my head it took some time to rein in all the options. Eventually I honed in on 2 of my favorites chemical elements... caffeine and chocolate! I asked the fabulous artist and thermofax/stencil maker extraordinaire, Terri Stegmiller to create a screen for me from my element design. 

I began with a piece of ice dyed cotton that reminded me of the colors in both coffee and chocolate. Next I used thickened dyes to and my thermofax screen to cover the surface of the fabric with brown, white and cobalt blue elements. I didn't take any pictures of the process... totally forgot which is unlike me! 

For your chance to win a collection of 6" X 6" squares of all the other awesome science inspired fabrics hop over to Jackie's blog and post a comment. She will select a winner on November 17th! 

Have a look at how all these pieces were created by visiting everyone's blogs:

Deborah Boschert

Carol R. Eaton

Susan Purney Mark

Gerrie Congdon

Lynda Heines

Julie Booth

Lynn Krawczyk

Leslie Jenison

Judy Gula

Jane Davila