Wow, we haven't posted since last July?!

We have had some OT's since last summer but we haven't been posting. So today I took a few photos. We're missing B at our OT's, but B are you listening (reading)..... add some photos of what you're up to! Hey B look..... your rains lilies are blooming! Jackie and I wandered a bit in the yard before Elizabeth arrived. Maybe Jackie will add her butterfly and flower photos.

Show and tell.... Jackie is working on this beautiful pieced project(s), one to be a wall hanging and another a table runner.

Elizabeth shared her latest sketches .... we're proud of you E... and me, a terrible sketcher, am very impressed! Keep it up E and keep sharing with us!

I didn't take photos after show-and-tell but J was cutting fabrics and E and I (oh I mean G) were gelli-printing. I continued with the paint after OT and took a couple photos to share. 

This last one was done with stamping on the gelli print with my wood block. Ken gave it to me for my birthday a couple years ago and no, I had never mentioned wood blocks to him!

Thanks ladies for a fun OT day!

Jackie chimes in with photos...

These are the surviving two photos - the rest got deleted accidentally...darn it!

Air Dry Clay at Elizabeth's

We played with children's craft products today with three colors of air dry clay. Since Jackie and Gina are out of town, we were just two OT'ers - Belinda and Elizabeth. Fortunately, Elizabeth's granddaughter, Kailee was visiting so there were three of us together to play.

We found the clay fun to work with and we tried to use non sticking underliners for the drying.

 Kailee shows her colorful octopus (or maybe multi-octopus) and curled edged bowl.

Belinda with her curliques and buttons and charms.

Multicolor tag made by Elizabeth

We are anxious to see how the clay dries and if the pieces shrink at all. The instructions say overnight or 72 hours. This was a fun play day with kiddie crafts.

More Gelli Time

Before getting into the gelli printing the OT ladies had lots of catching up to do.

Elizabeth shared her journal which has grown so much she had to rebind it. Her commitment is impressive and her pages even more so.....

We had a peeping Tom (or maybe Tomasina) spying on us through the front door....

Elizabeth couldn't stay for the gelli printing but Jackie, Belinda and I refreshed our memories on printing. It has been a while since we'd pulled the paints out. In fact when I couldn't find my gelli pad I finally found it still packed up in the bag from our last printing get together at Belinda's, back in March. Oh we had missed our gelli pads .... we even talked about which of the new sizes we're likely to order.

 Jackie's oleander prints and a couple from Gina....

 Coffee filters for background journal pages....

 Belinda's gelli printed hands....

More Indigo!

Only half of the OT gang could attend our last together but Jackie and I had lots of success with the indigo bucket. We made new clothes and home accessories from the old. Here's what's new and blue ...

The t-shirt was an over-dye from our last session. There was more white than I wanted so I was going to do a quick dip to add some lighter blue in the background but Jackie suggested another tie-dye session for it, on the diagonal, which is what I did and I'm very happy with it now.


Jackie adds:

Lime linen shirt overdyed in indigo

indigo overdye assortment

tatty peach shirt before

not so tatty shirt after

overdyed doilies in indigo

3/21/2014 Gelli and Paste Papers at Belinda's

In South Florida where we live, we are able to utilize our outdoor space in the winter or summer for drying our painted creations. Many find our summers too intense but others are happy to be here no matter the weather - hurricanes notwithstanding. 

Belinda and Elizabeth made wallpaper paste papers and Gina watched our process because she had never used this technique. The wallpaper paste gives a raised texture to the painted image especially when you draw into it with plastic utensils or other mark making tool. 

Belinda and Gina also used their Gelli pads for fabric and paper monoprinting.

In the picture below, left to right, on the top row are Elizabeth's paste papers, Gina's Gellied fabric, Belinda's paste papers.

Middle row, center are Gina's Gellied papers and right,a table full of drying papers.

Bottom row center is the reverse of Belinda's Gellied deli paper and right, the front of that same paper. We liked how the translucence made the paper usable from either side.

Above left are two bookmarks created with packing tape pressed and gently burnished onto the dried paint on the Gelli pad and then removed and pressed onto an old book page. Trimmed up they make pretty cool bookmarks to remember another fun Odd Tuesday. 

As we were leaving Belinda's house, we noticed her hand almost looked as if it had been painted henna-style. But was imprinted with some paint images from a lovely day making messes and getting our hands dirty.

Indigo Dyeing Day

Indigo Dyeing Day

A breezy and slightly chilly day on the patio with two indigo dye buckets.

Jackie's bucket used a slightly older Jacquard indigo kit, while Gina's was newer. Biggest difference? Gina's white powder chemicals (soda ash and thiox?) were in separate packets, while Jackie's were pre-mixed.

Neither bucket seemed to produce the 'bloom flower' to scoop off of the top prior to dunking the fabrics.

The dyes seemed to take quite well initially, but the proof is in the washout! What will stick? Was Jackie's bucket mix viable?

Pics to follow of the washout results!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jackie adds:

Here's the grid of cotton and linen pieces after
a) rinse with hose and bucket outside
b) wash in washing machine with detergent
c) dryer drying (except doilies or scarf)

Jackie's cotton and linen indigo dye results

1. blue cotton t-shirt with spiral tie
2. pink cotton t-shirt with spiral tie
3. Belinda's "car seat cover" with spiral tie
4. Belinda's other "car seat cover" with spiral tie
5. overdyed gelli prints on cotton
6. overdyed old doilies
7-9. overdyed linen shirt with some stitch resist (and mark-hiding result)

Jackie's overdyed rayon scarf

Rayon scarf with procion dye base and indigo overdye.

Summary/thoughts:

My cotton and linen washout results are a bit disappointing. The coloration is very subtle - I hoped for darker and/or more dye sticking.
So...was it the prep (tshirts may have had dryer sheet residue) ...or the prep of the bucket...or the temperature of the day (heard that heat gives better indigo results) or the fabric type... or impatience (longer oxidizing/soak wait).

Or - did we exhaust the indigo in the bucket? I thought it was good for 5 shirts - yet Gina thought it was 15. Hmmmm.

However - the rayon worked out great! It had two dunkings in the indigo bucket.

I was all set to fling everything in a new bucket right away - but I'll ponder my approach for a bit and do some technique research before I go experimenting!

Hope to see everyone else's pieces soon....

--Jackie

And another update from Jackie:

I looked up the instructions/reviews on the Dharma Trading site:

The kit should do 5 pounds of fabric or about 15 yards.

One reviewer posted the following

 Excellent results. Dyed about three pounds of cotton fabric some silk ribbon three huge skeins of handspun over three days. After that the flower shrunk up and the liquid turned blue--exhausted. Ordered several more kits.

and I'm now thinking my dye pot was exhausted quickly because it was overwhemingly blue vs. green to start.

--Jackie

Updates Continue.....Gina's Results:

I did a total of 12 t-shirts/tops, 8 or 9 pairs of socks and several pieces of varying sizes of fabric. A few pieces were given a second dip. I was happy with the color. I didn't notice a difference between pre-soaking fabric and putting it in dry although I did the dry pieces near the end of my dyeing so perhaps they would not have absorbed as much dye had they been wet. They sure did sop up the dye water though as my bucket was down to about 1/3 full after the bulky t-shirts and socks. My vat stayed green though throughout.

Elizabeth here - I dyed four items:
some fabric that had been sunprinted with acrylic paint on an earlier OT day and then a linen napkin. I scrunched them in my hand and held them in the dye for a little more than a minute.

 I also overdyed a silk scarf  that had been dyed with procion dyes. I knotted it and used Gina's dye bucket and it came out with many gradations of blues and greens and I am very pleased with it.

~~Belinda's photos via Jerry...~~~

Origami Boxes and Book folding

Much, much sharing takes place during our bi-monthly gatherings! As our shared project we  tasked ourselves with exploring origami box folding from papers we've created in the past. And some of us tried folded book forms.

Separately we've all been decluttering and minimizing our stashes - and friends' stashes of stuff.

We share - plants, fabrics, jewelry bits, magazines, books,   - some to use, some to sell, some to pass along again!

And we share - stories and tales of technology woes, travel hopes, family, pets, books, films, and shows.

And always - good company and nibbles galore!

Elizabeth here - I am participating in the Documented Life Project that is the brain child of five artists who blog at http://www.arttothe5th.com/.  Every week we are encouraged to document our lives using the offered prompt and if we choose - to share those on the Facebook page. Here are two of my journal pages that I shared with our Odd Tuesday tribe.

The prompt was inspiration from your favorite artist. I tried to create in the  style of Ingrid Dijkers with photos of my father and my grandson.

We were prompted to add a flap to a flap for this page. I had happily purged some of my husband's very old and bad wine so using the label and a journaling card, I added a playing card. "It's a good thing."

The Documented Life Project Facebook group has 5600+ members with so much information, inspiration and encouragement that I'm finding it a wonderful experience. Check it out!