Around the World Blog Hop!

 I was recently asked to participate in the Around the World Blog Hop by fiber artist and fabric dyer extraordinaire, Carol R. Eaton.

A selection of beautiful hand dyed fabrics by Carol R. Eaton.

I first "met" Carol as part of The Printed Fabric Bee. The Bee is an online group of surface design enthusiasts who design and print fabrics for one another throughout the year. I then had the opportunity to meet Carol in person at the SAQA conference earlier this year. What a delight! I also got to ooo and ahh over her scrumptious hand dyed fabrics. And of course, I had to buy some! You can learn more about Carol and her techniques on her Around the World Blog Hop post from last week.


As part of this blog hop, I was asked to answer some questions:
1. What am I working on?
At the moment, I'm designing, painting and printing several fat quarter fabrics for a pre-order giveaway for my upcoming book, Fabric Printing at Home. I'm using techniques I cover in the book to create the fabrics including: printing with fruits and veggies, found object printing, stenciling with kitchen materials and resist techniques. I'm also working on the next issue of my online newsletter, Julie B Booth Surface Design News (see the right-hand column to sign up...it's free!) where I'll set out the guidelines for the giveaway as well as include a "how-to" project featuring the steps I used to create one of the fabrics (seen here).

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?
For the past four years, I've focused on using my kitchen as my resource for materials to make print blocks, stencils, rubbing plates and resists.I continue to be inspired by all the different ways I can use common household materials to design complex textures, patterns and designs on fabric. I guess that using these materials in unique ways is my signature. My continuing explorations led me to write my book, Fabric Printing at Home- a whole book of playing and experimenting with kitchen materials to create unique fabric designs!

3. Why do I create what I do?
I find designing fabrics inspiring-- the colors, textures, repetition of design elements and of course, layering all of it together! When everything falls into place and the fabric sings, it is truly satisfying!

I also love to teach and find that designing classes and explaining/writing about techniques is an art in itself. I love to joke that I design classes that I want to take! Right now, I'm extremely excited about two classes I've designed and am teaching: Fabric Painting, Printing, and Stitching to Tell a Story with Cloth (aka Story Cloth) and Patching, Stitching, Weaving: Creating Healing Cloth where students use mending and applique techniques to create a cloth with a healing message.

4. How does my creating process work? 
I find that I work best when I have a combination of time to play/experiment with materials and a deadline.  Most of the time, I like to have some sort of  goal in mind. It may be as simple as, how many ways can I print with a particular material or  how can I manipulate the material to turn it into something with which I can print, stencil, rub or resist? I keep a notebook and jot down notes and draw thumbnail sketches that act as starting points and also to record what I've learned during the process. A good session in the studio starts full of "what ifs" and ends with some of those questions answered (and generates new questions as well!).


Now I have the pleasure of introducing you to two other artists whose work I admire. Here is a brief introduction. You'll be hearing more from Lisa on Friday, October 24...so don't forget to check out her blog!

Lisa McGarry
Lisa McGarry is one of my online friends. I met her when she decided to join in on my and Jennifer's monthly colorful Searching for Roy G Biv blog hops. I soon came to look forward to her posts...full of gorgeous photos of her adopted home city of Florence. Along the way, she's impressed and inspired me with her thoughtful paper art works and books. She's also made me drool on more than one occasion with her yummy recipes and photos of ingredients and the final product (YUM!). Here's Lisa's description of herself and her work:

Lisa McGarry is an American artist and writer who has been living in Florence for the last ten years. She finds the experience of space and place to be endlessly fascinating, and much of her work is inspired by architecture, cities, travel and design of any kind. Her favorite “materials" are words, paper and paint, and she spends a lot of time looking at the world through her camera lens.

Visit Lisa's blog: http://arzigogolare.blogspot.com

Jennifer Coyne Qudeen
Jennifer is my good buddy! I met her while we were both in fiber galleries at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, VA. When we were first introduced (by our mutual friend Pam Sullivan...an amazing fiber artist in her own right...but blogless!), Jennifer was a basket maker. Her organic and colorful reed baskets soon gave way to woven wall art and experiments with rusty found components. Needless to say, rust won out in the end...and I'm oh so happy about that! Jennifer is a magician with rust and more recently, tea bags. Here's how Jennifer describes herself:

Jennifer Coyne Qudeen is a mark maker, storyteller, surface design explorer, tea drinker, rust junkie and thorough believer in asking what if? And in discovering the answer. 

Jennifer couldn't commit to joining in on this blog hop this time but I hope you will stop by her blog for a visit: http://jennifercoynequdeen.blogspot.com

P.S.: For those of you still interested in playing along with the Search for Roy G Biv this month, I'll continue to update that post through Saturday midnight Eastern USA time!

And the winner is...

...Lisa. Congratulations! You are the winner of the bundle of three INDIGO fabrics.

Lisa, you and INDIGO must have an attraction for each other as you were also the winner of the INDIGO Challenge fabric last year :-) !

I'll be spending most of the day in the studio preparing for Fiber Camp and my Exploring Surface Design a la Carte class. I also need to set up a few final photos for the next issue of Julie B Booth Surface Design News, which comes out on Sunday July 28. Today, I'll be messing around with flour paste and blue glue resists and maybe a bit of nature printing. A bit of this and that, you might say.

Off I go...

Searching for Roy G Biv II: Green Update #3

Love this little green bird on her green perch.

Green fence and shadows.

Soft greens from a neighborhood walk.

Luminous green.

Luscious green grapes from the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building, San Francisco.

Green tomatoes also from the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building, San Francisco.

It's that time of the month again! Time to post your photos for this month's Search for Roy G Biv (the colors of the rainbow). As you can see this month's color is GREEN.

To play along just post some GREEN photos by midnight, Saturday, May 18th (Eastern USA time) and make a comment here. I will link back to your blog or  website or Flickr. If you have none of those, feel free to email me (threadborn@gmail) with your photos and I will post them here.

Looking forward to seeing all the variety (remember, tints and shades encouraged!) of GREENS today.

Here again is this month's Challenge fabric. The drawing will be on Sunday, May 19th. In order for your name to go into the hat, you must play along.

Be sure to take a look at my Roy co-host (or is it cohort?!) Jennifer's blog for D.C. GREENS.

Kim at Letting in the Light has created a lovely bit of GREEN.

Fiona at Paper Ponderings is pondering a great Picasso quote and abstract GREEN this month.

Some lovely organic GREENS from Margaret over at Charlton Stitcher. 

Maya at Million Little Stitches has a selection of hot summer GREENS. 

Lisa at arzigogolare has some edible psychedelic fractal GREENS (perfectly legal!). GREEN Part 2 features getting up close and personal with olive trees...with a Part 3 yet to come!

Deb at saltbushstitch has some gorgeous sea glass GREENS.

Winner Chosen for Yellow Challenge Fabric

Congratulations go out to Kim (Letting in the Light)! Your name was drawn from the baseball cap this morning. I hope you enjoy this fat quarter of hand printed fabric. I was particularly pleased with how this one came out.

Kim, please send me an email with your mailing address and I will get the fabric off in the mail to you soon. (threadborn@gmail.com)

Thanks to all of you who played along this month. I was truly inspired by your selection of yellows. By the way, if you haven't seen Lisa's second installment of yellow...it's a mouth watering one!

I hope you all will play along next month. Get your cameras out and about to search for GREEN (tints and shades appreciated). Be sure to post next month's photos on Thursday, May 16th (don't worry I'll remind you!).

Happy Violets and Elements of Design

 I went for a long walk this afternoon. Spring is really and truly here.

I love this time of year. The baby leaves are just starting to emerge and every where you look...violets!

I know that some may think of them as a weed...popping up in the pristine green grass...but to me they are so cheery. It reminds me of when I was young and my mom would always buy the domesticated version--Johnny Jump-ups! I spotted these white and violet versions on my walk. It just cheered me up.

This morning, I was across the river in Maryland to see a lecture by quilt artist and teacher, Carol Soderlund. She was giving the program at this month's  Potomac Fiber Arts Guild meeting. I don't normally get to the meeting; I'm often teaching a workshop. But the workshop didn't fill and I decided to head on over, especially when I heard the topic: The Fifteen Elements of Design based on architect, Christopher Alexander's writings.

I've only just recently been introduced to Mr. Alexander, thanks to Lisa McGarry over at arzigogolare. She has been blogging regular installments about some of his design principles from his book, A Pattern Language, and then going about Florence to record visual representations of those principles. It's been very enlightening.

Christopher Alexander was not happy with the architecture popping up in the 1960s and so decided to examine and analyze objects that he considered beautiful to figure out what it was about them that made them beautiful. After examining thousands of objects, he distilled his findings down to fifteen elements of design. Carol Soderlund used quilts from Quilt National 2012 to illustrate all fifteen principles. It was a beautiful, colorful and educational program. It got me wondering if I think enough about design principles when I work.

It was something to contemplate while on my walk this afternoon.

More Orange and Roy Winner

Orange Challenge Fabric

I'm happy to report that the search for orange continues...

Lisa at arzigoglare has a luscious sampling of Florentine oranges. She was inspired to sit down at her studio table and create some absolutely wonderful orange (and terracotta and copper) colored paper houses. Enjoy this rich selection of oranges.

Charlton Stitcher has also posted a second day of orange delights. She focused on this year's challenge of finding tints and shades of the color of the month. What an imaginative selection you'll find in her post.

I'm also happy to report that the names went into the hat and Charlton Stitcher is the winner of this month's challenge fabric...Congratulations! Please send me an email with you mailing address and the fabric will be heading your way. (threadborn@gmail.com).

Thanks to all of you who participated this month and for passing the word along to others. Next month it's yellow...I'm already on the search...

Searching for Roy G Biv Challenge: Black and White

It's that time of the month again...the third Thursday. Jennifer and I are once again Searching for Roy...or after Roy, as I like to call it! This month's Search is for Black & White. My photos this month are details from the exhibits I saw at the SCAD Museum: Little Black Dress, Jack Whitten: Erasures and Stretching the Limits: Fibers in Contemporary Painting.

 If you are new to the Search, each month, on the third Thursday, we invite you to post photos of the color of the month. So here's hoping that you will post some Black & White photos on your blog, website or Flickr page and make a comment here. I will link back to you. If you don't have any one of those, you can leave a comment with your email and I'll be in touch to help post your photos. The Challenge starts today and continues through Saturday, January 19 (midnight Eastern USA time).

As an added incentive each month, I create a special Challenge Fabric. If you play along, you will have the opportunity to win this fabric. I will be drawing names on Sunday morning...but you have to play in order to be eligible.

Looking forward to seeing your Black & White!

Check out Jennifer's blog for more Black & White...

Judy Martin of Judy's Journal has a Black & White transfer of her father. It is part of a quilt she made about her family. There's a joke as well!

Susan Bowers of tracemarks shares her collection of artist's books including some in Black &White.

Our capacity to make peace with another person and with the world depends very much on our capacity to make peace with ourselves.--Thich Nhat Hanh . Fiona Dempster of Paper Ponderings explores this thoughtful quote in her Thursday Thoughts. She also illustrates it with a beautiful piece of Black & White calligraphic art, Peace in Every Step.

Lisa McGarry of arzigogolare is Capturing Shadows. Once again she puts a new spin on the Challenge with her shadow play in Black & White.

Ersi Marina or Ersimarina's Workroom has an eclectic collection of Black & White. Scenes of her bedroom, broken glass, her mother's gloves (a favorite of mine!), scissors hiding in striped fabric and a beautiful fractal of a rose.

Liz Davidson has posted some heavenly Black & White night shadows!

Memories of Florence

 A few days ago, I received a beautiful gift from an artist and writer I met through this blog...Lisa McGarry. I usually refer to her as Lisa at arzigogolare. She has been perhaps the most dedicated player of the Searching for Roy G Biv Challenge. Every month she has written the most thoughtful, descriptive posts about each color and has provided the most luscious photos from Italy to illustrate them. In her most recent post about Indigo she created an awe-inspiring piece of artwork full of history and mystery.

So you can imagine how delighted I was to receive a copy of her book, The Piazzas of Florence!

The timing couldn't have been better. It arrived the day before my birthday. It's been a crazy week for me, but I just had to peek at those first few pages...and I was instantly drawn in...

It's been more than thirty years since my friend Jean Cook and I hauled backpacks on our shoulders and with Eurorail passes hidden in our money belts, made our way across Italy and France. I have particularly fond memories of Florence...a city that seemed to glow a soft terracotta orange. I remember staring in amazement at the shear size and beauty of Michelangelo's David.

I am looking forward to being whisked away on an historic and artistic adventure. Thank you, Lisa for your generosity!

A beautiful map of the Piazzas created by Lisa. She has maps throughout the book.