Artist Retreat

I'm visiting my friend and fellow fiber artist, Pam Sullivan, for a week. We've dubbed it an artist retreat and have been locking ourselves in her studio to play, laugh, experiment, get our hands dirty, forget the outside world and just enjoy being friends, artists and the act of creating.

Upon entering Pam's studio on Sunday, two collections caught my eye.

Spools of thread in vibrant colors.

Remnants of my fabrics from our project eXperiment. 

The top rust fabric is Pam's.

Pam has a this funky material that she found...well, I forget where she said...but it has holes punched in it, a grid of circles in places and is like Tyvek. She mentioned that she thought it would be fun to have words printed on a piece to cut up and play with so I stamped on story on it for her.

First I colored a bit of cotton to lay under it to catch the letters that fell through the holes. This is my piece and I love it.

We decided that we both are in dire need of yardage so that's what we've been concentrating on. Pam has been screen printing on very wide fabric and I've been monoprinting with her leftover paint.

The long pieces on top are Pam's. The little square beneath is mine.

During an excursion for supplies, I thought I'd found an inexpensive black cotton that would discharge to white. So far, it has discharged to grey. We wondered if it could be over-discharged in places to white so before retiring for the night, I went over a few spots and left them. Hopefully, I'll have a nice surprise this morning.

Of course, I can always do as Dorothy Caldwell says she does...take the bleach pen along to the fabric store, get samples cut, take them to the parking lot to discharge and see which what happens before buying.

Stay tuned for more fun and creativity.