Natural dyeing class

I just finished taking a Natural Dyeing class at TAC. Dyeing and painting with dyes is one of the things I'm interested in learning while at the residency. It's such an interesting subject and i got so many beautiful result on my first try that I am definitely going to experiment more in the coming months.



These are the swatches we made on our second class.



Batch of indigo. It smells just the way it looks on the pot (not very good), but the results are worth the smell.



My painting station.





Painting on fabric. I made a mess but i like a mess of colors.



I loved painting embroidery floss. I wanted to make color variations of my own.

You can see more photos on my flickr page.

My first try at free motion machine embroidery

Working with the sewing machine has always intimidated me. I'm so used to the slowness of doing hand embroidery that the change to the speed of the machine makes me very nervous. But i want to learn how to do certain things on the machine so i'm going to keep practicing. I like the messiness of the stitches above and i think i could use them in contrast with the more meticulous stitches that I do by hand.





Writing text was really hard but i like that the word shows how nervous I was doing it. This is another attempt making a face.



This is another attempt making a face.



Oh and this was the scariest part. I broke the needle and the machine made such a terrible noise when it happened that i thought i broke her too. I guess it must be a common thing for experienced sewers for this to happened from time to time but i'm such a newbie that it freaked me out.

Ground, grass and french knots

This is a little experiment trying to simulate ground with dirt and grass and flowers and things growing out of it. My sister says it looks like decoration on a cake or cupcake. Yum!

 

Weaving

On monday, as part of the residency at the Textile Arts Center we had a short class to introduce us to Weaving. I had never done this before and the technical aspects of how a loom works and how to set it up went right over my head. But when i sat down on the loom and started working it just felt like such a simple and relaxing process. I must say I enjoyed it very much and want to learn more about it.




Seing the final product is so rewarding. I can't believe it came out so beautiful on my first try. Of course there are tons of mistakes but i love how the mistakes look.

Artist Residency at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn

Last week I started a six months residency at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn. This is why i've been neglecting a little my blog. I've been busy moving in and getting used to working in a studio outside of my home which I haven't done since college. It's been great so far. I love having a place where i can use the walls to pin up larger drawings and my work and where i have no distractions.



Here is another photo of the place before i started to put all my stuff in it.

This photo shows a tittle of the process i'm making moving in. I expect more work on the walls as i start making new work.

This is just a glimpse of an exercise we did this weekend. It was a lot of fun. I'll be posting more stuff later once i start to get some work done.

New embroidery kits

I just listed on my shop some new products I've been meaning to list for a while now. I've gotten in the past people asking me if I sell patters or kits of some of my embroideries. I had thought about it but hadn't done it yet. I wish i had been able to list these guys before the holidays as i think they can make very cute gifts. Anyways, I've listed 4 kits so far and more are coming soon.

This one is called "Through the window". It's a little scene of a cat looking through a window at a bird in a tree. This can only mean trouble.

This embroidery pattern is for beginners and intermediate embroiderers. In it you will find everything you need to accomplish the project.

This kit contains: 

Zine with instructions 

Fabric with drawing 

Embroidery thread 

Needle 

4 inch embroidery hoop 

(this kit does NOT contain scissors)

You can find more embroidery patterns at my shop.

Back from the holidays

I think i had the craziest holiday vacation ever. Or better said i hadn't had a vacation like this since i was a kid. I went to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando. I am a huge fan of Harry Potter and this was a treat for me. It was crazy busy. There where too many people and it was hard to walk around but i was so excited about seing all the shops and rides that i didn't mind all the craziness. They did such a great job on capturing so many of the details from the book and movies. The castle was so amazing!

Even with all the craziness i managed to take pictures of some magical pins and needles.

Love the pincushions.

Love this feather quill pens. Managed to buy one for myself. And a wand too! Geek alert!!

Ok, so now that i am back at home i have some new products that I'm putting on my shop. I'll have a post later this week with an update.