Parfait Dyeing Results from Last Week

Well I have dyed, ironed and posted fabrics on Etsy and ArtFire! Thought I would give you a peek at what came out of the dye containers. The colors are so beautiful and I'm amazed at how the dyes take so differently from the snow dyed fabrics. The snow dyed fabrics, the colors are so much more brilliant and the parfait dyed fabrics are softer. The movement in both are wonderful and unique. So, here are the parfait fabrics!


Hand Dyed Cotton Fabric Fuchsia


Hand Dyed Cotton Fabric Varigated Green and Yellow


Hand Dyed Cotton Fabric Fuchsia and Blue


Hand Dyed Cotton Fabric Blue and Fuchsia


Hand Dyed Cotton Fabric Purple, Fuchsia and Blues


Hand Dyed Cotton Fabric Golden Yellow and Green


Fuchsia and Blue Hand Dyed Fabric


Multi Color Dyed Cotton Fabric 1 Yard

It Feels Good to be Creative Again

It sure does feel good to feel creative again. I'm in the studio concentrating on fabric today. One of the discussion groups I am part of has been talking about containers that we dye in. Well, all the discussion really got me in the mood to dye fabric today. It is so cold outside that I didn't want to spend time in the garage mixing dyes and arranging fabric to dye. So I hauled the containers and dye upstairs to my studio and have several yards of fabric dyeing along with some tops that I have bought to dye. Two containers are parfait style and one is sort of a parfait, but it is just one blouse with two colors. I wanted a camp shirt that is brown and turquoise, since I wear my turquoise jewelry a lot. Hope it turns out the way I want, if not, oh well! That is one of the things I love about parfait dyeing, the results are always a surprise.



I decided to get the fabric dyeing and then start on my truck quilt. I just have a little bit of painting left to do on it and some surface techniques. I fused it all down the other day. I'm planning out the quilting too. Hopefully I will get the quilting sketched out this afternoon and then I'll be ready to go tomorrow morning after I run my errands and do come cooking and baking for a party on Saturday. I plan on quilting a barn and a windmill into the background.

Okay, have an artful day everyone!

It’s Been a Good Day!

My day started off wonderful! Got up, checked the email and someone had bought some of my dyed fabric! To make it even sweeter, one of the pieces is one that I snow dyed last week. Whoo Hoo!
So, I made sure to workout, but I think I forgot to have breakfast and celebrated the sale by myself. While I was getting ready for the day I decided it was time to put forward some of the “Branding” information I have been reading on the internet, Etsy and ArtFire. First I decided to continue with the header I have on my blog, Etsy and ArtFire shops and put it on my “Sales Receipt/Packing Slip”. I just copied the packing slip information over from Paypal and made my own! This way I was able to personalize my message at the bottom and made sure all my websites were accounted for.
Next, I pressed white gift tissue, yes, I ironed gift tissue. I want it to look nice! Then I printed out clear labels with my ArtFire and Etsy shop web addresses and I pulled out some of my hand painted fabric scraps and cut a strip to use as a bow. After I wrapped up the fabric, I used one of the labels to secure the gift tissue, and then tied it up with the hand painted fabric! Doesn’t it look pretty! I know printed gift tissue paper would look nicer, but I don’t want to run the risk of any of the dyes from the paper to leave a mark on these beautiful fabrics.
The next branding/marketing idea I put to use was printing out “Return Customer” discount cards. It is a marketing strategy talked about on one of the Etsy forums. I thought this was a grand idea, so I put it into action.
Okay, so now I’m off to post new artwork on Etsy and ArtFire!

Snow Dyed Fabric - The Big Reveal!

We received over an inch of snow the other day at our house. Just enough for me to gather enough snow for to snow dye some fabric in the garage. I posted on Monday the pictures of my 5 yards of fabric being snow dyed (and how they looked like huge snow cones). Well, here are the results. At first, I wasn’t too thrilled with the results, but I have learned not to make judgments until after I washed the fabric twice and dried it. Because, first impressions are always wrong. The fabric I think looks the worst, becomes my favorite, what can I say, so I just don’t get my hopes up or down anymore and look forward to the wonderful surprise that awaits me. The part of the process I love the best is when I iron the fabric, that is when it really talks to me and tells me what it wants to do. With each picture, I’ll tell you what they told me!
For those of you that are just now following my blog, I blogged earlier this year about the snow dyeing process. See my March 31, 2010 post "Snow Dyed - Hand Dyed Cotton.

The Reveal……………


This first piece is gorgeous, I know I should save the best for last, but I just had to show this one first. This piece started talking flowers, as I started ironing, flowers started popping out, iris and peonies. Purple and yellow iris, pink peonies, do you see them? My hair stylist asked what I was smoking when I showed the pictures to him, I don’t smoke anything! Just high on life, fabric and color.


Oh, I love these colors. Reds, pinks, orange, yellow, bright cheerful colors. This one started talking flowers too, yellow and pink iris again, or maybe some butterflies. This would also be a great piece to use for appliqué. It has such a great mixture and movement. Do you think I’m anxious for warmer weather and that is why I’m seeing spring and summer flowers?


Piece number three started out as a disappointment. The top section just didn’t take the dye as well as the middle. I don’t know if it just didn’t get soaked well enough with soda ash before I placed the snow, or if the dye just didn’t migrate over to it, but it has a hint of the robin egg blue, chartreuse and pink. The colors are better in person, I just couldn’t get the color to adjust right today and I wasn’t up to braving the cold to go outside and take it. Brrrr. Anyway, I can see using surface designs and textures on it. The middle part reminds me of pictures I’ve seen of stars exploding. When I started thinking about stars, then a universe piece started forming in my brain...we’ll see where it goes. It just may go into either my Etsy or Artfire shop. Any takers out there?


Piece number four, now this is a close runner for my favorite. Rainbow explosion, the green is very lightly mixed in the middle. The way the colors just explode into each other is invigorating! The snow, ice crystals really did a great job. This piece also shows great potential for flowers and butterflies too. Do you see them too?


This last piece was dyed with piece number two, so the colors are the same, but the way the fabric took the dyes is a little different. At first I didn’t see flowers as much as the other piece, but when I looked at it again I saw gladiolas and some roses. I also see this piece as a great piece for appliqué. Each artist visualizes differently, so tell what the fabric saying to you.

Some of these pieces will be one of my online shops, StudioJules on Artfire or StudioJulesArt on Esty . So, if you interested, check my shops! Each piece is one yard.

Happy creating everyone and I hope these bright cheerful colors warm up your day!

Sketchbook Challenge - January - Highly Prized

It’s cold this morning! Okay, I know it’s not as cold in Texas as it is north of us, but my fingers are so cold that I’m having trouble using my new Droid X because my finger temp isn’t registering… I know, life could be worse.

As I promised yesterday, I have pictures of the sketches I have made so far this month for the Sketchbook Challenge. I joined this challenge because I have a terrible time sketching and just haven’t been able to get comfortable with pencil and paper, I’ve always been more of a “tracer”. So, this month the challenge is “Highly Prized”.

Hmmmm, the first thing that came to my mind is that the most highly prized things in my life are faith, hope and love. Without faith in God and our relationship, life would be so hard to deal with at times. Hope in the promise of salvation through Jesus Christ, and the love that He shares with me and I am able to pass on to others.


As I was working on the sketch above, I thought of the gifts and talents that God has given me and realized that the art I enjoy creating the most is abstract, off the beaten path, realism with a twist, so…… I sketched out the next drawing while I was playing with my new phone and downloading music. Honestly, downloading the program to download the music to my phone was very frustrating, so I needed a positive outlet. Here is what I came up with, structured abstract, colorful, free and didn’t require any computer downloads. I can already see this as an art quilt with each section being quilted differently. For this one I believe my “Highly Prized” statement would be the “freedom to create whatever my art heart desires”.



Have a great day ya’ll and stay warm!
Watch for my next post…..snow dyed fabric!

Where has the time gone?

Can't believe we are 10 days into January and I feel like I am so far behind already! Oh well, guess that is what happens when you start off the year with recovering from surgery. I looked back to what I blogged a year ago for my resolution for my studio for the year. To have a project being quilted, one on the board and one in the design phase....for the major part of the year I kept that one up! Right now I have 5 yards of fabric in the garage covered with snow and dye. I love this process! Today I realized one reason why, I'm a big fan of snow cones in the summertime, and these look like huge snowcones! I promise not to eat them, only to drool over the fabric when they are done. Here are the pics!


To add to my schedule this week, I decided open an Etsy shop in addition to my Art Fire studio. Spreading the love around, plus so many people know about Etsy and don't know about Art Fire, so I decided to jump on the wagon and try Etsy out. The links are on the right hand side bar. My Etsy shop is named StudioJulesArt.

I've started on the Sketchbook Challenge. I haven't done very much, but some. I'll post pictures tomorrow of what I've done.