Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!

The house is all decorated  - just waiting for Santa.  May your Christmas be bright and cheery!

Quiet on Blog but busy in Studio

Fabric Book covers once again.  This time not only did I make covers for composition books, but for artist sketch books and 3x5 card booklets.  I really enjoyed the one just above.  I plan to create more using my many scraps.

The above are some of my dyed/printed silk scarves.  How I love to print using real leaves.  There's a meditative process happening when I print.

And lastly, I've made some fabric paper using pieces of paper towel that protected my hands when printing leaves.  I layered a thin muslin with torn pieces paper towels and painted with thinned white glue.  I have no plans at the present for this but I know I'll create something sometime.

I also made this year's Christmas ornaments but forgot to take a picture.  Next time.

Ribbon Scarves - Another Sister Project

Here I am wearing my first scarve.

My darling sister, Marlene, wearing one of her scarves

We spent one of our days together with two of Marlene's friends making ribbon/thread scarves.  Process - lay out various ribbon/threads/yarns/fabric pieces onto a water soluble plastic-like material, place another water soluble piece on top and pin.   Take it to the sewing machine and stitch.  I thoroughly enjoyed going through Marlene's stash picking out what I wanted.  The stitching was a bit boring.  Once the stitching was completed, dip it in water and voila!  A beautiful airy scarf.  I made two - though very like in colors.  Marlene had 3 when the week was up.  I had a fun time with her friends!

Dyeing using Silk Ties

Isn't this absolutely beautiful!  My sister and I layered a piece of muslin, layered a white silk scarf, added cut pieces of silk ties(whole), placed another silk scarf on top and ended with another piece of muslin.  We rolled it up and tied the roll.  Placed the roll in a pot, covered it in water and 2 tablespoons of vinegar and boiled the roll for 20 minutes.  Rinsed in cold water, unroll, and were tickled with the results.  The scarves are beautiful and fun to wear.  The muslin caught some of the leftover dye but turned out mostly pink.  The red and blues turned out the best, green next best.

We went on to experiment with silk broadcloth.  This time we didn't use the muslin, just the broadcloth.

We just used half the silk for the ties and then folded over the other half.  Simply beautiful.  By the way, the tie pieces can be used again and again.  And of course, I plan to use the pieces in some kind of fiber art project.  Stay turned!

Ice Dyeing

powdered dye on top of ice which was on top of the fabric

My sister just had to take this picture as I was tapping the powdered dye onto the ice.

I just spent a wonderful week with my sister, Marlene, in Auburn, California.  We played/experimented each and every day.  This is our journey into ice dyeing.  What a ball we had.  We soaked our fabric in soda ash.  Then manipulated the fabrics:  folded, tied, scrunched and set it on grates.  Placed ice on top and then sprinkled powdered dye on top.  At the last minute, I put in a treated t-shirt in the bottom of one of the pans.  Had I thought of it sooner, I would have placed clothing/fabric under the other as well.  There was a lot of run-off dye.  We covered the iced fabric to batch overnight.  And voila

This is my favorite!

And here's the shirt.

T-shirt that caught the run-off dye.

This is a technique I will use and use and use.  The fabric is wonderful - I just love the results.  And such an easy technique with such outstanding results!

Stay tuned for more of my sister's and my experiments.

Dyed and Printed Clothes for my wee one

My wee one is not so "wee" anymore.  Max has outgrown the first bunch of dyed/printed onsies.  We're onto the next set.  This are better for Fall/Winter time anyway!  Hope he likes them!

The above are 2 more Composition Books and covers I just finished.  They head to First Street Gallery, Neptune Beach, Florida for the Christmas season!  I figured out a way to do my "art" while stitching up a craft item.

Latest Studio Work

I saw a great leaf wreath (what a mouthful) the other day on one of the many blogs I visit and came up with this one.  I added paint to leaves I already printed and stitched for earlier projects.  I wanted more fall-like colors.  I hot glued them on an embroidery hoop and voila!  a Fall wreath!  I'm tickled to use up some of those leftover leaves.

The First Street Gallery, Neptune Beach, Florida, sells my composition book and covers.  So I painted, collaged and stitched the above plus a few more that look similar.  Off they go to the gallery!

Another Fabric Portrait



One Plus One Equals Three by Diane Hamburg

This fabric portrait is one of my daughter, Kara, and her husband, Matt.  The photo was taken by a friend of Kara's while Kara was waiting for baby Max to enter the family.  The faces were done using Ellen Lindner's technique Double Reverse Applique.  The background was the challenge!  The show this was made for is entitled "Split Complements."  I had to design a background using the split complementary colors of the blue dyed fabrics I used for the faces.  After several tries, I ended up with a mixed media background - I collaged old book pages using matt medium and heat adhered painted silk organza on top of a dyed blue fabric that was painted using a stencil and Shiva oilsticks.  I'm pleased with my efforts.

And I am pleased to have received an Honorable Mention for this at my local Island Art Association's Nouveau Art Exhibit.

Surface Design Work

Getting ready for my surface design classes I'm offering at my local art association www.islandart.org this Fall.  Monoprinting, screenprinting, stampmaking.

New work

A couple of weeks ago I dove into discharging again and had a great time.  I was suppose to be getting ready to teach a class but the timing was off.  What I had fun doing was tearing my discharged fabrics into strips and weaving them.  Oh, just remembered, one of the pieces I wove the different blacks first then discharged.  I then cut fused silks into the above pieces and stitched.  I mounted the finished pieces on gallery wrapped 8 x 8" frames.  I'm pleased.  I will revisit the weaving again.

Continuous Line Drawing

I've been drawing on transparencies using a wipe-out pen - tracing over magazine faces using a continuous line.  All in the hope of being able to draw faces easily using the sewing machine.  I traced the face drawn on the transparency onto tissue paper with a transfer pencil and then transferred the face onto fabric using the iron.  Then I stitched.  Way too much fun. Someday I'll stitch without all that work beforehand.  I have this fixation on faces, I'm afraid.