Blog Hop - Mary Beth Shaw's Book: Stencil Girl

The inspiration for this piece came from Mary Beth Shaw's book, Stencil Girl (and when you buy the book, you get an exclusive stencil/bookmark with it!). Mary Beth uses paper for a wonderful paper batik 'quilt', but since I have other plans for the finished fabric I have used cotton muslin instead of paper.

Since it was a cool day and we needed a little fire to warm up the cottage, I melted my wax on top of the wood stove.









After melting the wax, I kept it at temperature using an electric melting pot while I worked on the kitchen counter.  I layed the stencils over the fabric and applied the wax with a brush. I used soya wax since it was all I had on hand, but I wasn't thrilled with the results. If I do this again I'll go back to a combination of bee's wax and paraffin. I've used this combination for batik before with good results.

Once the wax was appied I used these liquid dyes in little misters to apply the colour.








This image shows how the soya wax let some of the colour through.  Not quite what I was going for, but the end result is pleasing non the less.

The pieces were put into little ziploc bags and left over night.

 The pieces were then hung to dry outside on the line.



Unfortunately, when they were rinsed the colour became a little more pastel than I was counting on.  Oh well, they're still lovely bright colours.  These next images show the quilting that was done, inspired by the stencil patterns.

 And these images show a few of the stencils that were used. Some of the pieces didn't turn out as well, so the original stencilled image was lost.

Stencils used:

Buildings Stencil by Carol Dube 
Gears Stencil by Mary Beth Shaw
Greek Key Stencil by Mary Beth Shaw
Dots and Dashes Stencil by Jessica Sporn
Trees Stencil by Mary Beth Shaw
Pods Stencil by Jane LaFazio

My plan for this wonderful piece of quilted fabric is to make myself a carry all puppy 'diaper' bag for all the things I need to have with me for my Future Dog Guide foster puppies. I'm still designing the bag, complete with lots of pockets inside for maximum organization.  I'll post a picture of the finished bag when it's done.  Until then, thanks for visiting and joining in another fabulous StencilGirl blog hop! Please make sure you visit all of the other blogs on this wonderful week long hop!

Giveaway: 

One lucky winner, chosen at random, will receive Stencil Girl the book with exclusive stencil bookmark and (3) 6" x 5" stencils designed by Mary Beth Shaw. 

All comments left on all of the blogs will be entered into the draw.  
Giveaway will close: Sunday, September 21st @ 11:59PM Central Time

Good Luck!

Hop Stops:

StencilGirl Talk

Leslie Tucker Jenison

Linda Kittmer - you are here!

If you missed the first few days of this week long blog hop go here to find the start.

Didn't win the giveaway...buy this incredible book here

The Indigo Fabric Reveal...

As you know from some previous posts, my friends and I did some indigo dyeing while up at my cottage.  This photo is an indication of what the back yard looked like.  We had plastic drop sheets everywhere so that we could lay out the fabric while it oxidized, before we rinsed it and hung it to dry.  We all discovered that we aren't too keen on wearing rubber gloves, so after a while the gloves came off and we all ended up with blue under our nails (among other places LOL).

Indigo is a fun (but smelly) process.  I wish I had more photos to show you the process, but I didn't want to risk the safely of my camera while I was working.  Once dipped, the fabric is a bright lime green colour and it only begins to turn blue when it is exposed to the air and begins to oxidize.  We all wished we could have somehow captured some of the wonderful patterns of blues and greens, but it was short lived.

FYI:  Shibori (絞り染め Shiborizome^?) is a Japanese term for several methods of dyeing cloth with a pattern by binding, stitching, folding, twisting, compressing it, or capping. Some of these methods are known in the West as tie-dye.  Want to know more...click here.

Here are the fabrics I ended up with, paired with the original photos I had posted of my prep: (captions provide a bit more detail on the prep used)

Wax resist using soy wax and a tjanting tool.

Accordion folded fabric clamped with plastic buckles as a resist

Rubber bands used as a resist

Fabric crumpled into a ball and then secured with rubber bands.

Floral glass 'half marbles' secured with thread

Accordion folded fabric secured with clamps

Accordion folded, straight and triangle fold, one clamped with round washers

Accordion folded and secured with rubber bands and string

Stamped with text using Stazon Ink

Hand dyed fabric, soy wax resist using tjanting tool and then over dyed

Fabric wrapped around PVC pipe, secured with string and then scrunched together
(Sorry, I forgot to get a photo of the prep.)

Machine stitched then dyed

surface design on cotton velvet, over dyed

Soy wax resist using tjanting tool

Masking tape and soy wax resist using tjanting tool

Soy wax resist using tjanting tool

T-shirt, folded into thirds and secured with rubber bands