Carol Miller's Creative Color Class

Wow! What a learning experience this has been. In our first lesson we were to make a color wheel with primaries, tints, shades, and tones. Talk about having to dig through my stash. I used Joen Wolfrom 3 in 1 color tool, picked out my fabric that had as close to pure colors for my primaries. Then shades, then tones. I had to go through my stash completely to find all the colors I needed. There are some silk fabrics in here, I was so glad I was able to come up with all I needed. If you are not familiar with color ,a tint is your pure color with white added to it. A shade is your pure color with black added to it. A tone is your pure color with grey added to it. This is a fantastic class for me in learning more about color. I was able to use some of my hand dye fabric too. But not all cause a lot of them were colors not on this color wheel. I started with yellow, yellow green, green, blue green, blue, blue violet, violet, red violet, purple, red, orange, and yellow orange. Once I get my fabric dyed like I am wanting to do, I will be able to do a complete color wheel using all hand dyes. Can't wait. Will post as soon as I get them done. When I get those done then my color wheel will consist of yellow, chartreuse, yellow green, spring green green, blue green, aqua green, aqua blue, turquoise, cerulean blue, blue, blue violet, violet, red violet, purple, fuchsia, magenta, blue red, red, orange red, orange, yellow orange, orange yellow and golden yellow. There will be some work in getting this one done.

This the color wheel I done in Marjie McWilliams Cotton Dyeing Basics. My blue green didn't mottle very well. I am so glad I took this class.

Overdyeing

I had a fun day of overdyeing yesterday. Overdyeing is where you take a piece of fabric and dye over it. I used some pieces from my second batching of primary colors and overdyed them to a brighter yellow. On the Golden Yellows (top left) I used 1 Lemon Yellow; (top right) 2 Bright Yellow.On the orange yellow (bottom left) I used 1 Lemon Yellow and on the Grayed Yellow (bottom right) 2 Bright Yellow. Very interesting seeing the different results.

Gradations

I had another fun day of dyeing yesturday. Learned some interesting things. This was suppose to be Beige to True Brown. The bottom row I used 26 Sky Blue, 2 Bright Yellow, 10 Fire red. These are somewhat the color they should be. The top row I used 26 Sky Blue, 1 Lemon Yellow, 12 Light Red and what a difference in color the changing of the red and yellow made. This will definately help in my study of color. I have signed up for Carol Millers Gradation and Transparencies class at quilt university.com. I plan on hand dyeing my fabrics for this class. It's going to be a GREAT color study for me.

Cotton Dyeing Basic Lesson 2

Got my second try of hand dyeing done. Really pleased with the results. The first grouping was the first batch. Nice strong colors. These are 1/2 yard pieces. The second grouping was from the second batch. Very pastel and lightly mottled. They were fat 1/4's. In the second batch my orange yellow became a yellow orange. The red violet and the yellow green stayed in the same color family. I am definately hooked on dyeing my own fabric. Next week we will learn gradations. Can't wait!
I plan on taking Marjie's quilters palette class in April. She is adding one more lesson to this class so it will be a little more to it than previous quilters pallete classes.

My First Try at Dyeing My own Fabric

I have been studying color off and on for several years. I would pick up a little here and there not understanding color theory at all. So I decided to take classes on color. I took Lily Kerns Creative Color and she referred me to Faber Birren's Creative Color Book. A great book for learning color. I have signed up for Carol Miller's Color Companions class which starts at the end of the month. And I also plan on taking her Gradations and Transparencies class in February.I signed up for Marjie McWilliams Cotton Dyeing Basics class which started this past Saturday. These are the results of that class. I got Yellow,Golden Yellows, Orange Yellow and a Grayed Yellow. Cerulean Blue and Turquiose, Red,Orange, and Chartruese. Our first lesson consisted of the three primary colors, then using the left over dye in different formulas to see what we could get. I learned that I need to write on my fabric with a permanent marker the formula, cause I had written it down on paper but when I threw them in the washer I couldn't tell you which formula is for what. Except the Primaries (Yellow,Blue,Red)on top are from the first batch and the Primaries on second row are from the second batch. This has been so much fun!

People in Places by Linda Schmidt

The photos posted below are what I done in this class at quiltuniversity.com. I really enjoyed this class and am hoping to take Linda's Elements In Fabric that will be coming up in March. She is a great teacher. We took a photo of our choice and enlarged it and made art quilts with them. I was well pleased with the way mine turned out. I chose to use pastel chalks instead of fabric paint because I haven't quite got the knack for fabric painting. I just need to practice.

This piece was the beginning of Linda Schmidts People in Places class. In this piece we learned how to enlarge our photo, make working drawings and templates, some fabric painting, foundation piecing, curved piecing,burnt edge applique, fusing, invisible machine applique, thread painting. This piece and the one posted below it was getting us ready to make our own masterpiece.

This little piece was part of the class of Linda's getting us ready to make people for our project. I had the background fabric I had bought a long time ago wondering what in the world will I ever do with this fabric. Well, I found a use for it here. I used pastel chalks to paint the body, appliqued her body down on the background then appliqued her clothes on and used thread for her hair. Of course I had to put her a little ribbon to hold her hair. It was a fun class.

I thread painted the hair, and the mustache. But I took out the mustache in the final pics and used pastels for it cause I wasn't satisfied with the way the mustache looked

And here is my final masterpiece. I chose to mat and frame it instead of quilting it. I was very proud of this, expecially it being my first time at trying this technique.

Realistic Fabric Portraits

Added a few more fabrics to the piece. I am not happy with the eyes. Oh well, like Marilyn said you won't turn out a masterpiece the first go round. Practice makes perfect! Don't know when I will get it finished but wanted to share with everyone.

Realistic Fabric Portraits

I have continued to add some more fabric. This has been so fun. Still think the darks are to dark but I will change them later.

Realistic Fabric Portraits by Marilyn Belford

This was a class I took in quiltuniversity.com back in 2004. I was traveling working at the time and only got the picture of my grandmother drawn on the muslin. A few weeks ago I actually started applying the fabric. I have decided already that the real dark areas are to dark and I will change that before I fuse everything down. If you haven't taken classes at quiltuniversity they are great. They give you really detailed instructions. I am following them from two years ago.