Autumn has arrived!

 It's been awhile!  After our annual Open Studios Tour which was a great success for me (thank you to all who stopped in and shopped!) I was busy filling orders I received at the event, then began working to build up my inventory for holiday shopping, which has already begun!

Here are a few things I've completed recently:

And in addition to working to build up my inventory, I'm also experimenting (constantly!) with new (for me) dye colors and patterns!  Here's a shirt I finished yesterday - fun dyes from Happy Cat Dyes called Strawberry Skies and Dragons Egg, and the shirt was placed over whiffle balls in a colander, with ice on top, and the dyes sprinkled over the ice:

This is the shirt, batching over whiffle balls in a colander!

The end result - soft, feathery shapes and a myriad of colors, but very muted in this one.  I hope to improve my ratio of dyes to ice a little so I get more vivid colors, but it's a case of try, analyze the results, and adjust!  

So now we're into Autumn, and the temperatures are cooler, the days shorter and the leaves are beginning to change colors.  Me, I'm busy looking into ways to keep my ice dyeing warm enough for the ice to melt and the colors to blossom!  Time to look into a heating lamp, so I can keep going!

Stay tuned, and I hope to have even more fun things to share soon!

May: warmer temps, more ice dyeing and a litttle gardening!

 At long last, Winter lost out to Spring with a week of early monsoon rains, followed by lovely warm sunshine and a lot of greenery and Spring blooms!  No pictures to show for it, but I have really appreciated the change.  I got back to walking the square that our home is located on, and I got back to doing more ice dyeing.  Here are some of my recent ones:

I love this one because I got a lot of points and some really neat markings.  This is a simple 2 color incline dye.

I was trying a new color combo here: Marigold and Wedgewood blue, with one color on each half of the shirt.

This is similar to the one before it, only using sky blue and palomino gold.

Since I'll be participating again this year in the annual Flagstaff Open Studios Tour, I need to start cranking out more inventory, since I'm also in 2 galleries!

Here are a couple of larger bowls I finished this month:

I love the fabric I used for the bowl above - my colors and the design is very pleasing to the eye!

This one is for a fund raiser raffle for a group I belong to, and will also contain an apron, pot holders and pot handle sleeve made by my friend Joyce of Rabbit Hill Crafts.  Bowls this size (10" across, 3" high) are a great size for gift baskets.

On the garden front, I bought some flowers at local nurseries and planted in containers:

Sadly, critters ate a lot of them, so I transplanted into smaller pots and put them on tables on the

deck.  So far, so good!

So that's it for May... hope you're all enjoying Spring, and I'll be back!

Bowls and cards

 Good grief, October is almost gone already!  Time really flies these days...

It's been a month of making bowls, moving my booth in Sedona Artist Market, and preserving autumn leaves along with using some.

Here's my "show and tell":

Here's my first attempt at a bowl with a braided rim - definitely something I hope to do more of!

Haven't done a bowl with a lid for awhile, and this one just seemed to be a good one for a lid - slightly different shape than my usual ones.

And it's been awhile since I made a ribbon bowl!

I picked up this fabric on a day trip to Phoenix last week - love the warm, autumn colors!

I have been collecting leaves to preserve for some of my cards, and made a few nice ones while I was learning about methods that worked best for preserving the leaves.  Here are a few:

I pressed the leaves in a book covered by other books to preserve them, then lightly sponged on some metallic paints before gluing them to a botanical print card.  I'm glad I finally took the time to try this - I love autumn leaves, and love that I can incorporate them into my creative pursuits!

My lovely new booth at Sedona Artist Market!  Much larger than my old one, and I got a larger clothing rack so I could expand my inventory.  Can't wait to see how my sales went this month!

On the home front, I got our heater vents cleaned out, got some work done in the yard, and did a little ice dyeing:

Time to start thinking about what to do in November - hard to believe Christmas is just around

the corner!  Stay tuned....

What a month!

My last post was not quite a month ago - I had to look back to think of all that has happened since then.

June 12th we got to evacuate again - a new fire started on the west side of the peaks and came through the canyon heading northeast.  We saw the smoke, I got bags ready, then we got the "Go" to evacuate.  Back over to my friend Cinde's for 4 days!

I had just set up a shirt to gravity dye, so it sat there for the duration:

If I had been home, I most likely would have rinsed it out the next day, and I don't know if it would have come out like this, but I sure like it!  My love affair with gravity dyeing was sparked, and I've been doing more since we returned!  Here are a couple, including one I custom dyed for a friend:

This one was purchased by a fellow artist at Arts Connection the day I brought it in!

Sold this one to a fellow artist at Sedona Artist Market!  Think I'm on a roll...

And I custom dyed this for another fellow artist, Louise!  Got one in the washer right now as well...

On another note, I recently got a bunch of my bowls back from my friend Jana - we had been collaborating on gift baskets - she's a soap maker - but her business wasn't doing well, so she decided to close up shop.  So I decided to increase my booth space at Arts Connection from a wall display to a large round table, and I got it set up earlier this week:

It's nice to have a space with a 360 degree view, and it's right up in front at the gallery.... first thing people see when they come in!

So what's next?  Well, our annual Flagstaff Open Studios tour will be the last weekend in August, and I will be joining my friend Cinde and 3 other artists at Cinde's home for the event!  And we are bringing back the Prelude Exhibit at Arts Connection - each artist who is participating in Open Studios will have space to show 2 or 3 of their creations so that people can visit the exhibit to see which of the locations they want to visit during the event.  Prior to Covid19, our opening was always well attended, and Cinde's location has had around 100 visitors during the weekend of Open Studios!  We are looking forward to another successful weekend August 27-28, so if you're in the Flagstaff Area, be sure to stop by Arts Connection for more information about the event!  

Meanwhile, back to the dye works I go...

Spring has Sprung!

 Yes, we are finally into Spring, and I've broken out the shorts and flip flops, although it's not quite warm enough to wear them all the time yet.  But we're getting there!

Meanwhile, I'm in full ice dye mode - set up a dye area in our Patio room so I can do more than one or two items at once, and have had such fun trying new patterns and color combos!

Here's one of my favorites so far:

This is 2 colors: Golden Brown and Brushed Steel.  My goal was to leave some white on the shirt and I found a video tutorial that taught me just how to do it.  I really love the negative space and all the jagged edges of the colors, very cool!  This method is called incline ice dye, where I actually place the dyed shirt on an angle to batch, and it lets the dye slowly migrate out as the ice melts.  This will definitely be a regular pattern for me!

On the bowl front, I got a brain storm that I am going to test at Arts Connection and Sedona Artist Market, but I'll share it here as well:

It occurred to me that when people see my bowls, they may not think of using them for a gift basket, so maybe this will plant the seed!  I'm also adding a list to the flier with upcoming Gift dates for them to think of, and decided to make an Easter themed basket that I was going to have on display at Arts connection, but a friend from CA saw a picture I posted on facebook and asked to buy it!

Although we thought all the regular artists would be breaking down at Arts Connection for the month while the Recycle Art Exhibit took over, we got very few entries so we made room for them at the front of the gallery and continue to have a full gallery display in the rest of the area.  No month off for me, but that's all good - more opportunities for me to share my work!

On another front, I have decided to start posting items for sale on my business facebook page Judy Sall Originals.  I'll also share to my personal page for any who are not following my business page.  It will be sporadic and when I have items available that are not in either of the galleries where I sell.  We'll see if it pans out - can't hurt to try, right? 😊

I know there was something else I wanted to share, but can't remember what it was!  Aah, the joys of growing older, lol!  So I'll get this posted and wish you all a happy Spring!

So.... what have I been doing lately?

 I've been in kind of a creative "blah" period lately... wanting to do something different, but everything I try seems to not inspire me to continue!  Every felt that?  I used to go into a creative "black hole" mostly by the end of the year, but it seems like I've been full steam ahead for the past few years.  So maybe this is just a call for time-out to catch my breath, creatively speaking.  Anyway, here are some pix of several works in progress - some may never go any further, others do have some promise... just a matter of deciding which appeals to me more.

Above, top left is a Spirit Doll that needs more, I'm just not sure what yet; top right is one in progress, but it will be a little different - I want to mount it on a flat surface, maybe a painted canvas... but haven't decided the size or shape of the canvas yet.  And below is the start of a hand stitched piece with houses.  I stopped because the first window I stitched down (lower left) is crooked, and I didn't feel like removing the stitches and doing it over, so put it aside for now.

In the picture above, I started playing with stitching swirls using a blanket stitch - the one on the dark blue background started with a blanket stitch, then I decided to make it more like a ladder stitch, if there even is such a thing!  The concentric circle is a loop stitch.  The one with the black background is more to my liking, but I have no plan for what to do next, so this is more of a stitch meditation/exercise than something with a plan in mind.  And the piece on the right is based on an article I read in QA magazine from Dec/Jan 2020 by Julie Basseches Booth where she creates small talisman pouches using layers of sheer fabrics and covers with yarn and threads she couches onto the base, then adds beads and other items before stitching the pouch together.  I've admired her work for a long time, and would love to use her techniques in my textile projects.

So other than these WIPS, what have I been up to?  Mostly dyeing shirts and tunics!  I did a few recently using a "multi swirl" pattern which were fun - here are a couple of them.

The tunic above was tie-dyed

The shirt above was "Ice dyed", meaning instead of using a liquid dye where the dye powder is dissolved in water, I apply dye powders directly onto the tied shirt, then cover with ice cubes.  As the cubes slowly dissolve, they gradually dissolve the dye powders.  Most dyes are made up of several different dye colors, so there is color separation as the item batches.  I love how they come out, but they do take a lot longer to batch so I don't do them as much.  But I love this latest batch, so may have to get some more going soon!  I got a shipment of rayon tunic blanks yesterday which are selling well at Sedona Artists' Market, so maybe I can get a bunch done before I go down next month.

So that's what I've been doing lately... how about  you?  Happy Thanksgiving to you all, and I'll see you soon!

Holiday display and Bowl class

It's been another busy month here as usual!  I've been busy getting my holiday shopping stock beefed up and into the gallery:

Pictured here, an array of my Fringed Cut Velvet shawls and scarves.  I also added a table in my regular booth space to display my Covered Notepads and Journals.  No time yet to get a picture of that.  I also have a full rack of my tie-dye shirts, Jackets and Skirts, as well as a selection of my coiled fabric bowls.

Speaking of my bowls, I was approached recently by some gals who wanted to know if I teach classes in coiled bowl making.  I have wanted to do one for awhile, so I got their e-mail info and contacted our local quilt store.  I have 2 class dates set up for next spring, and already have 6 people interested in taking the class... woo-hoo! 

And if all this weren't enough to keep me busy, I've been doing some batik/ice dyed shirts:

Other than that, I haven't been doing a thing (she said, tongue in cheek!).  Hard to believe 2017 is almost over, but it's been a very busy and successful year for me so far... lots to be thankful for!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Dendritic monoprints, more ice dyes, my! How time flies!

Another month has flown by... I just keep getting caught up in things to try, new groups to follow on facebook... this time, it is Tie Dye Alternatives that has thrown me back into the past, and inspired me to re-visit some tie-dye patterns, coupled with using ice dyeing techniques instead of regular dyeing methods.  Here is a recent one that I really love:

I haven't done the circular pattern for a long time, and when I did, it was more an "earth" pattern, but using the same method to create the arcs. 

I have also delved a little into something called Dendritic monoprints, which I had to google to figure out what it is!  It's a really cool design that happens when you apply some acrylic paints on a sheet of plexiglass, spread it evenly, then press another sheet of plexiglass on top.  When you remove your hands and lift the second sheet off, you have some really neat tree-like patterns.  Then you place a piece of paper or fabric on top and very gently press to make the print - you an use both sheets to make prints.  Here are a few I did recently:

Do I know what I'm going to do with these?  Not yet.  I also want to experiment on fabric too... just need more time!

One more thing I started, which I will be doing more of soon - cut velvet dyed scarves:

I think these will make great holiday gifts, or an elegant addition to a holiday outfit, don't you?  I hope to have these in the gallery sometime in the near future.  Okay, time to get back to it!

More jackets and a new bowl

I got busy this month and dyed some more of my new jackets.  These are both ice dyed... I love the color separation, especially on the first one!

And I just had to make a bowl with these two fabrics... love the colors together!

This view shows the air-dryed clay bead I made to accent the medallion.

I've got a little break coming in April - the Arts Connection gallery will be exhibiting the 15th Annual Recycled Art show, so I won't be gallery sitting and will have some time to do a little more ice-dyeing, hopefully!  Oh, and we're working on a garage clean-out, and the weather is warming a little, so I'll be playing in the garden too.  Time flies when you keep coming up with projects, right?