My altered fabrics sooo far and

Just to remind you of our great trip:>
This is the cover of Kristi Steiners altered fabric book I am a woman who......in this fun freeing class Kristi teaches 8 techniques to alter fabrics...someone please add to the supply list dont bring fabric you cant paint on...I brought a bunch of Kaffe Fassets and had a hard time messing them up since I think they are perfect the way they are...

This is the only page that I have almost finished....its the collage page...I am sure more beads are coming...everything here is glued together...this page is inkjet transferred images with acrylic medium....you surely do have to rub alot to get them to transfer to fabric...the two on the left lifted and moved around...practice practice practice is needed here:> The one on the right did MUCH better....but i rubbed MUCH more...
This is a stamped page...we all had a great time using everyone's stamps...I blotted it with Sues rust colored stamp pad to get the odd color ...got better at it the more i blotted it with the ink pad...this was supposed to be done with walnut ink but i thought it was too dark..started to dunk it in my tea butt....there was none for once...This is another dyed and stamped page ...it was dyed with Kristis creative dye kit from Country in the City which is supposed to be great for dyeing laces and other fibers too...as well as paper...


This is the second piece of fabric that i did ...i call it the murdered fabric because I did everything to it trying to get it over the uglies...finally got decent overdying it and then I tried to mess it up again making sloppy stenciled fleur de lis...too much paint


This tag was made the same way and I splatted it with hmmm...well they have a tip shaped like a stamp pad inker...but makes these wonderful spots...why didnt i buy some while i was there....got everything else but these!:<

Dyed, dried out by the daffodils and then stenciled using a piece of plastic that wraps clementines....Kristis looked like fish scales but i was in tooo big a hurry when
This was done with gesso mixed with whatever was on the table...then you draw and stamp in it...fun technique

so many more pages to go....and beads to add and trims and who knows what else....after all i am a woman who loves to make art...any art ....

So I promised i would blog our trip to Random

Arts in Saluda NC but darn it took me a while to get to it. We had a terrific time on our trip to Saluda NC to take a class with Kristi Steiner making an altered fabric book...


OK so one of the reasons it took so long was this journal page of our nite and day in the WNC(western North Carolina) mountains of Saluda NC....It takes you from the beginning of our trip to Saluda....if you follow the road.....it was a great trip with great company!!

We spent the nite at a great motel...The Saluda Mountain Lodge....all new, great beds...and an awesome view of the valley...

We went to a terrific little place called the Wildflower Bakery and Cafe for breakfast. The food was awesome....fresh baked breads, danish, a wide assortment of cookies and even fresh dog cookies....YES Kim of course I bought some for my furkids Charley and Jazz!


Then it was on to Random Arts on a lovely spring morning in tiny downtown Saluda NC....here are pics of the town ....Evidently Saluda used to be a booming railroad town with 37 hotels back before the railroad stopped and the depression began....Shots of Main Street...Saluda is now on the Historic Registry because of all the old buildings...down the street the other way...this is an old gas station remodeled into a neat little cafe...hear it has great breakfasts...
We parked in back of this suv advertising GS cookies...too funny....
Our fearless leader during this trip...Ille scoping out the store...and upcoming workshops are behind her ...alot of nationally known artists wander thru this shops doors...


Jan the owner of Random Arts chatting the crowd up! And it was very crowded....twenty or so people in this store...Randoms Art started life as a stamp store but evidently was quickly changed to an altered book and art store...the shop is crammed with all kinds of goodies to alter just about anything...and all kinds of neat things everywhere you look...they even have stuff hanging from the ceilings!!
Lots of goodies for the altered book fan...very interesting stamps...and different from the normal ones at Michaels or Hobby Lobby.....
Ille checking out the stamps...I wish i had gotten some of them...

Shot toward the front door...which
Still shopping
Ille and the owners partner in front of the store...evidently this used to be a movie theater and then a gym for the local highschool.
Kristi Steiner warming up to her subject matter teaching her students altered fabrics. The class project- an accordion book using 8 different fabric altering techniques...it was alot of fun...and I will blog the little i got done next...meant to work on it when i got home but you know how that is!!!


Ille really working on that piece of fabric. I think i killed at least one or two peic
It was a very busy day and every one was working hard....an awesome lunch was served from the Saluda Grade Restaurant...

These daffodils at the church kept guard over our altered fabrics as they dried....
Margaret and Sue with thier loot...there were two margarets on this trip...

Margaret heading down the block to the grocery store for snacks for the trip home...

Thompsons grocery store....

Saturday play day at my house

Well people were coming and going all day...some came early and left early...some came late and stayed...thanks Ille for helping clean up!! Ille is after us again to finish our Patti Culea stargaze tome that we started in a class at Fiber on a whim in Atlanta...these ladies will be the top of the box that the tome goes into..only been working on this project off and on for a year and most are not nearly done!!! These ladies will go on the top of the box for the tome...well why do we need the arca aka box??? to keep all the pieces in silly!:> BYTW these are a series of patterns made by Patti Culea......

the top one is my ladies...the bottom two are illes....

I painted the background by first letting the ladies dry and soaking the fabric and putting setacolor and lumiere on ....it then ran like watercolor...I also added some fabric glitter to the ladies before they dried...
Not to be out done..Ille likes to paint so much she painted one for Kim too who was too busy appliqueing...
Ille painting and Sue getting ready to paint...

Some of sues fabulous work photographed on the back of one of the Callaham quilts...the magenta polka dots...

Sues book made from wallpaper and other things she had laying around...its soo charming...
the inside of her book
The outside of her minibook


Kim and her needle turned appliqued flowers...kim has been working on this a while because she usually really into something wilder like making crazy beaded purses....today she was laid back and tame...but its gonna be a gorgeous quilt one day....isnt it kim? kims blog
she also took some pics of play day...we should have take pics of each other with our identical cameras:>


These are pictures of Illes box that she has been working on too...she took a workshop from Kristi Steiner and Susan Edmonson up in the North Carolina mountains last September...I hope the pictures do it justice...its exquisite....and nope duh didnt take a pic of the box closed....its really THREE boxes that fit inside each other..think i will have to try one of these....when i have time...got to get off the computer and make my brother in law a bday quilt...he has ms and is really sick...so off to make a guy quilt....