Trees

This is how the tree  in the yard look when it snowed on March 3. Yes my HD put fangs on the face in the tree....sigh...

 Again on on March 3. This the the tree I hang my rust fabric on. It was what I called "Hard Packed"!!!

 And finally the tree in my yard has a new sprout on it. Although we had many of the limbs removed it still has life in it!!!

Trees

We had a magnificent maple tree just off out deck. That is why every picture I took on the deck where I do my rust dyeing is shady. It was a silver maple, which is not a hard wood tree. They usually last 100 years. Our house was built in 1919 so the tree was close to being 100. The insurance company requested we take it out. It was very sad to loose this tree.
Many animals including flying squirrels used this tree. Once 5 raccoon babies were in the tree and their mother was on the ground. I swear I heard them saying as plain as day, "Ma, ma, ma"!!!

We had a bird feeder on the tree. You can see it on the top picture. You can also see it in the picture above. Now we have a face!!!

Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair

At Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair, June 24-26, 2011, we ran "Make It, Take It" classes in our booth. This is where we held them.

A boy and his mother make these.

They are Paintstiks on rust dyed fabric.

Two the the models for the Fair made these Artist Trading Cards.

It was taught by Cheryl Sleboda.

Have you seen her articles in Quilting Arts? She uses LED's in her art work.
If you click on this link you can see more of her work:

http://muppin.com/etextile.htm

Finally!!!!

On Sunday June 5, I finally set up the Rust-Tex Studio!!!

I usually get it set up shortly after tax day but with the death of my mom and my youngest graduating from college it took me a bit longer this year.

The above photo shows the deck before I started. The below shows how it looked after I was done. I started around noon and ended around 3. Then I puttered around for another hour.

I was so hungry we had an early dinner. It was brats, because we do live in WI and that is a traditional German food. Brats is pronounced like it rhymes with cats.

This Week-End

I will be vending at the Mukwonago, WI Crazy Quilter's Guild show this week-end.

Come visit me if you are in Wisconsin or a nearby state.

I will be selling these wonderful threads, my rust dyed fabric,

and many vintage items.

Here is the link if you need to know more about this show.
http://www.mukwonagocrazyquilters.com/6.html

4 Generations

My mother passed away on March 4. She turned 90 on February 5. We had a birthday party for her on February 12. She could not keep her eyes off her great grand daughter, who was born on January 23. This is a picture of my mother, my daughter, me and my grand daughter.

While my mother was in the hospital with pneumonia just before she died she delighted in looking at pictures of her great grand daughter as I held them up for her to look at.

The funeral will be held in Chicago, IL on Saturday March 19th. Please read this poem at 1:00pm CST, to help send my mother to heaven.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on the snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn’s rain.
When you awaken in the morning hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there. I did not die.

Thanks for being a Rust-Tex.blogspot.com reader.

HAPPY NEWS!!!

My eldest daughter (ED) and my SIL made my DH and I first time grandparents!!!

At 4:00 am January 23, 2011 ED gave birth to a 7 pound 6 oz, 19 ½ girl at Meriter Hospital in Madison, WI.

The happy family

They were married on August 2, 2008. They had a themed wedding called the Pirate and the Princess. Click on this link to see pictures of their wedding:

http://rust-tex.blogspot.com/2008/08/pirate-and-princess.html

Mother, father and baby are all doing well.

I did not post sooner because I was watching the Green Bay Packers trounce the Chicago Bears.

The Green Bay Packers are on their way to the Super Bowl!!!!

Go, Pack, Go!!!

Madison Contemporary Fiber Artists

Madison Contemporary Fiber Artists (MCFA) is having a show at the Overture Center in Madison, WI. If you are in the area come and see it. Here is one of the pieces. It is by Diane Dempsey, showing a detail of her piece Appalachian Spring.

The show is called, Turning Point.

We were suppose to write in about 100 words how this was a turning point in our lives. This is what Diane wrote:
My family lived in Kentucky in the 1980s and 1990s. There seemed to be one day each April – a true ‘turning point’—when every tree would burst into bloom: Redbuds, Cherries and Apples, Sweet Gum, Magnolia, Dogwoods, Sassafras, Spicebushes, Rhododendrons, Azaleas… I knew spring had finally arrived. All life had awakened, and the dull, gray days of winter were gone. In its place was the sudden spectacular beauty of spring. Moonscape

18” wide x 45” long
My piece is called, Moonscape. Here is my artist statement: The biggest turning point in my life came in 2004 when I saw a video on the internet. It showed women laying out white fabric in a junk yard. They came back in a few days. Marks had transferred from the rusty items to the fabric.
I did research on the internet about rust dyeing. In 2006 I wrote the Rust-Tex Instructional CD, which has 4 repeatable techniques on it.
I had so much fun rust dyeing I made more fabric than I could use in a 1,000 lifetimes. My new career became selling rust dyed fabric to art quilter.

The reception is Friday January 21, from 6-8 PM. Hope you can make it.

Exciting News!!!

Quilter's Home Magazine published this about Rust-Tex:

If you click on the picture you can read it what they wrote.

If you want a summary they are encouraging people to buy the "Trees Kit". It is their Feb/Mar 2011 issue if you want to buy it.

Whenever I am at JoAnn's Fabric Stores, and they have magazines at 10% off, I buy it. I like it so much I actually subscribed to it. You can too by clicking here! I can't actually send to the page where you can subscribe. If you go to the home page, in the upper right hand corner there is a place that says, "Subscribe Now".

Do it!!!

You will be happy you did.

Festival of Quilts Con't

This is how the Rust-Tex stand looked at the Festival of Quilts. Here in America we call them booths. My friend, Peggy, who is American and had never been to England before, had to learn a whole new vocabulary.

Bronwen, who lives about an hour from Birmingham, and has been bugging me to come to the FOQ for years. In 1973 I was Maid of Honor at her wedding.

Here is a picture of the the three of us taken in Venice. Bronwen is on the left, Peggy is in the middle, and I, of course, am on the right.

Festival of Quilt and the Rust-Tex Instructional CD

Many copies of the Rust-Tex Instructional CD that I sold at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England do not work. They were burned incorrectly. If you have one that is not working please send me your address by clicking on the link below:

http://www.loisjarvisquilts.com/V0uMI5.php?varone=Lois_Jarvis

I only sold 30 copies and some of them worked, so please be honest.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jig!!!

This is what I looked like the morning I set out for my trip to England to attend the Festival of Quilts. It was held at the National Exhibition Center in Birmingham, England. The Rust-Tex Collection (RTC) and the Ground Zero Quilt were displayed in the European Quilters Café.

People were VERY interested in the RTC and the Ground Zero Quilt.

I made an old Spanish lady cry as I told her some stories about the quilt.

Going to England

I am packing up my bags to go to England. The Rust-Tex Collection (RTC) is already on its way. I bought a mini map of London and Cambridge at a garage sale. I plan to do a lot of walking in London. I am taking some rust dyed clothing and I bought myself a new journal for this trip. Not only will the RTC be displayed at the Festival of Quilts (FOQ) in Birmingham, England. I am also bring my quilt, Ground Zero (GZ). They both will be in the European Quilters Cafe. It will be the first time GZ is on display outside of the USA. I will be vending at the FOQ. And most of my product was shipped with the RTC.
I am staying with friends and this little quilt is for one of them. The apron is what I wear when I vend. The gray fabric is the back of my quilt, GZ. Only two days until I leave!!!
My excitement is building!!!

My Image Transfer on the C&T Blog

Today my Image Transfer technique for rust dyeing was featured on the C&T Publishing blog. Click here to see what they said about it. If you go there, and I hope you will, this is the picture that is missing.

While you are there please leave a comment!!! Thanks!

Winners of the Rust-Tex Collection

Today's post is about Rita Legere. She is a self taught artist who began making art quilts 4 years ago, after a severe illness and a near death experience.

Rita says,"The thrill of the artistic adventure is spiritual for me and helps my soul grow."Left Out in The Snow

Rita was inspired by an old rusty fire truck she saw on the side of the road in a drift of snow. She stopped to take pictures of it. When she had printed the outline of the picture on fabric she thought; "What if I added real rust to the picture?" Thus her "Selective Rusting Technique" was born.

Left Out in The Snow

Whole cloth, ink jet printed photo, on rust dyed cotton, “Selective Rusting”, dry-brush rust paint, textile paint, free-motion machine quilted with polyester, rayon thread, and metallic thread.

Rita had an article published in Quilting Arts Oct/Nov 2009 on a technique that she calls "Selective Rusting". The article shows how she takes a picture, photo shops it, prints it on fabric and then adds, "Selective Rusting". Here are the basic directions:

1. After printing your image to fabric, arrange strands of steel wool on the printed fabric in areas that are to be accentuated with authentic rust.

2. Spray the steel wool with vinegar until it is damp. Cover your project with clear plastic and let it sit overnight.

3. Rinse as usual.

Rita shares a website with her husband: www.mooseandcrow.com
Rita's Blog: www.gracefulspirit.blogspot.com

Winners of the Rust-Tex Collection

Today's post is about Terry Ann Hartzell. Terry began making art as soon as she could hold a crayon and has never stopped. She earned her B.A. degree in art education from Otterbein University. She loves teaching art almost as much as making it. Luna

Inspiration: Reading about The Rust-Tex Collection brought to mind the phrase "moth and rust" I recalled from a Bible verse. Year’s ago, I saw a Luna moth which I thought was exceptionally beautiful, so I used it to illustrate this verse. The small brown moths were chosen because they have the same colors as the rust-dyed fabric.

Luna Detail
Machine pieced cotton sheeting rust-dyed by the artist, commercial cotton fabric; raw edge machine appliqued cotton fabric hand-dyed by the artist, painted unbleached muslin, fabric markers, acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium, free-motion machine quilting and hand-quilted with cotton, poly-cotton and nylon threads.

Terry entered two pieces with the same bible quote. From Matthew 6:19-21 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

One of the judges really want Terry's sphinx month piece pictured below, but when we look at the detail and saw the hand drawn moths on Luna, she quickly changed her mind!!!

Terry other entry for the RTC hand painted sphinx month


I finally got to meet Terry at International Quilt Festival Chicago. Here is a picture of us in the Rust-Tex booth.
Terry lives on a tree farm with her family amid the beautiful rolling hills of the Mohican Valley in Ohio. You can get a glimpse of her thoughts on her blog: http://terryannhartzell.wordpress.com/

INSTANT RUST!!!

Here in my technique for instant rust.

1. Push gel medium through a stencil with a putty knife.

I like to use Earth Safe Finishes Gel Medium because it has no Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC). You can read more about VOC on this page:

http://www.earthsafefinishes.com/VOC.html

2. Sprinkle on iron filings to cover the gel medium.

3. Get the excess filings back into the container but funneling them in with a folded piece of paper.

4. When the gel medium is completely dry, (I like to wait until the next day), spray it with straight vinegar. Keep it moist by respraying it.

5. With in 3-4 hours the iron filings will turn the color of rust. (They are gray to start with.) The vinegar will make an iron liquor that will dye the background rust color.

The shirt above and the ginkgo leaves below were made with stencils from The Crafters Workshop. The shirt was made using a stencil called Capricious, one of their 12" x 12" stencils.

The ginkgo leaves are made from one of their 6" x 6" stencils.

Winners of the Rust-Tex Collection

Today I am posting about one of the winners of the Rust-Tex Collection, Carol Ann Waugh, who lives in Denver, CO. She is the author of three quilting books, including the classic, Patchwork Quilt Design and Coloring Book, which was published in 1983.

Earth & Sky

Machine pieced, rust dyed 100% cotton, hand dyed fabric by the artist, machine quilted.

I found this on her blog, "Last summer, I fell in love with rusting fabric. Unfortunately, I live in a very clean city and no matter where I looked, I couldn't find any rusted objects. So I actually ended up buying my first rusted objects online. Imagine!
Now, my garage is full of plates, nails, horse shoes, gears, metal sheets, you name it, I have it! I experimented with white and colored fabric and decided a combination of these gave me a great palate to work with. Not only did I love the surprising results each time, but using this fabric in my art quilts also gave me great ideas for enhancing the marks with machine quilting."

Carol Ann's inspiration, "The hand rusted cotton was made over several weeks by the artist and in many cases a piece was put through the rusting process numerous times. This piece is part of a series of works related to the physical properties of our planet and it's relationship to the universe, as we now know it."

Honorable Mention Sponsored by Mill House Quilts, Waunakee, WI

http://carolannwaugh.blogspot.com
http://www.carolannwaugh.com

Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair

Here is how the Rust-Tex Collection (RTC) looked at the Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair in Grayslake, IL. I love the way this guy's shirt is making the red moon on Rustscape by Nina Edelman of Milwaukee, WI glow. There was a crowd looking at the RTC in the morning,
but, as happens with all shows, not too many late in the day. This person was taking a good look at Going by Candy Flynn of Middleton, WI.