A Day of Arts and Crafts

Today was spent doing arts and crafts. This morning Marion and I took a silk painting class at the Batik Art Studio in Newton Center. We each painted a scarf using a cold batik method. Picasso need not worry, his spot in art history is safe, but we both had a good time.

Since neither of us can draw, we took advantage of some large foam stencils that the teacher offered. You start by tracing your shape with a disappearing marker, the same kind that we use in quilting.

Marion chose a flower.

I chose an octopus.

I attempted to draw some starfish but they didn't quite come out... luckily the ink will disappear!

Once you have your fabric marked, you affix it to a frame and then you trace your outline with a chemical resist. Then you get to paint.

Marion's scarf in progress.

My octopus in progress.

Marion's final flower. She opted to keep her background white.

I've got a heavy hand with paint and couldn't resist covering the entire surface of my scarf with color.

The painting part was fun because as soon as you put your brush to the silk, the dye flows like magic. It is "stopped" by the chemical resist. The final step is to steam the scarf for 40 minutes over boiling water and then to wash it. I will hopefully do that sometime this week. I'm curious to see what the final colors look like.

I was energized by the class and I decided to do some sewing when I got home. I finished seven projects! Before you get jealous, it was five pillowcases and two boxy pouches, and all of them were in progress. But I was thrilled to spend some time in my Studio and to have something to show for it.

Two Christmas penguin pillowcases for the divine Miss Linda B. and three pillowcases for our (mine and Marion's) Etsy Shop.

The infamous Boxy Pouch. Original size on the right and super size on the left (cut your fabric 10x12 instead of 8x10).

Before you go, you should check out the other people's work from our scarf class today. Several of the other ladies (there were eight of us in total) could actually paint and did some more intricate work (not requiring the foam stencils!).

Thanks for visiting!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy