They got hitched!

My son is now a husband and I gained a daughter in law... life is grand! Their wedding was magical and my hubby and I couldn't have been more proud of them! 

Yippee!

Hannah's dad married them! 

Awww...

Their friends were so much fun! 

Life lesson #1 - never take yourself too seriously! 

My sweet boys! 

I look forward to the next chapter in our family! Thanks for taking the time to share our joy! 

Life is Wonderful!

We are so pleased that our son is marrying the love of his life next week! The celebration has created lots of reasons to ponder life and count our blessings. 

I'll come back to the studio with fresh ideas inspired by the joys of life, family and health!

CHEERS!

Mud Cloth!

Bogolanfini or Bogoan (mud cloth) is handmade Malian cotton fabric dyed with fermented mud! Traditionally men wove the cloth and woman dyed it although in today's economic climate men have taken over the majority of the process. 

The fabric is woven on narrow looms and then pieced together to create full cloths. In the below detail shot you can see the individual strips and the wonderful texture of the course cloth. The hourglass symbolizes "time will tell". 

The cloth is first soaked in a dye bath made from mashed and boiled leaves of the n'gallama tree which turns the cloth yellow. The mud is collected from riverbeds and fermented at times for up to a year.The designs are added by carefully applying the special mud using a piece of metal or wood. The combination of the mud and cloth creates a chemical reaction so when the mud is washed off the brown color remains.

The final step is to wash off the yellow n'gallama dye from the unpainted parts of the cloth using soap and bleach. Although this cloth doesn't have any white in the design many of the designs incorporate white which is apparent once the cloth is bleached. The Smithsonian Museum has a great mud cloth introduction showing the process - check it out!  

To maintain the integrity of my treasured piece of mud cloth I chose to simply create a sleeve on each end to hang as is. I love the cloth and it makes me smile when I think of how it was created and the many hands it took to reach me. 

 My wonderful piece of mud cloth came from Wendy Mamattah's Esty shop. Wendy has a full line of fabrics she imports directly from Africa. I discovered Wendy due to our mutual love of fabric! She was looking for a piece that reminded her of that special glow of the African sun. Please take a moment to check out Wendy's Etsy shop and her web site at Braid and Stitch.

How To Hang Art Cloth!

I love taking a favorite piece of art cloth and hanging it on the wall. The fabric is in it's purest form with minimal additional embellishments. I absolutely love quilted wall art but sometimes you come across a special piece of fabric that you simply can't cut into little bits. In those cases hemming and hanging is a great way to display your art cloth.

The first decision to make is whether or not to "fussy" cut the piece for maximum impact. For this ice dyed piece my favorite part was right in the middle and I preferred to have a rectangle shaped piece so I sliced off the edges. 

The next step was to hem the sides. I pressed a 1/4" and then folded over again to sew down. 

For the bottom finished edge I pressed the raw edge a 1/2" and folded over 2" to create a sleeve. I like to slip a small dowel through the bottom to add a small amount of weight to keep the art cloth hanging properly. 

 The top finished edge was handled in the same way with the exception of each end. I folded and pressed the outside corner as shown above. 

 I sewed along the along to entire length so the seam looked continuous from the front. 

I used a small dowel with eyelets on the ends to prepare for hanging. The final step was to string nylon fishing line through the eyelets. The clear line is great for minimal distraction once the art cloth is hung. 

If you give this a try or have some other tips I'd love to hear from you! 

Custom Fabric Panels!

I was asked to create two panels using the color green and a natural theme. This happens to be two of my favorite things so it was a pleasure to work on this project. The cotton was painted and sun printed with cherry tree leaves. 

I'd say we have a satisfied customer!

The fabric was stretched over canvas panels and each 24" X 34". 

Have you tried stretching fabric over artist canvas or old frames? It's a great option for hanging art cloth.  

New Fabrics For Sale!

I just updated my fabric inventory (long overdue!). The new fabrics incorporate ice dyeing, confetti dyeing, sun printing, hand painted fabrics and my new passion - indigo!

Please click on any of the above tabs to see what new fabrics are available and if any need to move over to your stash please click here or on the individual page to place your order!

Don't see what you'd like? Contact me and we can talk about how to create a custom piece just for you!