Dyeing to Quilt

Last night I returned from a fabulous week of teaching my five-day Dyeing to Quilt class at the Haliburton School of the Arts. We drove the 4 hours to Haliburton last Saturday, and found there were still colourful leaves on the trees. It is a quite quiet and pretty drive from Ottawa to Haliburton. My husband joined me for the weekend, and he took this picture.

We lucked out! It stopped raining and the sun came out for a while on Sunday. We walked in Haliburton Forest.

We also paid visit to the Wolf Centre. Since my last visit two summers ago, the wolf pack has declined in number, due to an intruder cutting the fence, such that all the male wolves (including the alpha male) escaped. Two were later found shot. Four females remain and an alpha male was brought in from another location. The wolves are protected and studied within an enclosure that is about 15 acres.

This is the new alpha male, Fang.

Last week was study break at the college, and only two classes were running. It was a quiet week, and it turned out that I was the only teacher staying in the teacher cabins. I was basically in the woods by myself during the week. 

Except of course my deer friends, who greeted me outside the cottage, or on the road, each morning.

Here is a picture of Haliburton School of the Arts in the early morning light. It is a state-of-the-art facility, set in the forest.

A closer photo of the blue horse sculpture to the left of the entrance.

WARNING: LOTS OF INSPIRATION TO COME IN THE MANY PHOTOS I AM ABOUT TO SHARE.

I had nine eager dyers in the class.  We began with parfait dyeing.

Some students chose to dye gradations.

We did a little Bomaki Shibori.

Barbara placed her dyes carefully to create this sunset-like piece of fabric.

We wrapped PVC poles and tried some Arashi Shibori, using an immersion dye bath. I absolutely adore this piece of fabric that Candice created.

 

Some close-ups of arashi shibori.

Jo-Ann tried some stitch resist. Her mokume shibori turned out looking like the wood grain it is supposed to look like.

This is Barb, holding up one of her pieces of fabric created using a flour paste resist.

More flour paste resisted fabric.

Wow, Libbys collection is yummy!

 

Everyone had a chance to try some soy wax batik.

 With the following results:

We tried dyeing some folded and manipulated fabric. I am dying to do some more of this myself soon! This piece, made by Ruth, is my favorite!

On the last day we had Show and Tell.  Everyone dyed approximately 15 meters of fabric in total. A great stash to see them through the winter.

Barb organized and labelled all her work so she has a record of how she made it. A great idea, I should try this more often!

 

I had a blast, and am feeling inspired to dye, but in the mean time, I am getting ready to teach session 2 of The Art Quilt tomorrow at The Running Stitch. I am going to be home a lot more in the next couple of months, and will be updating on some of the projects I am working on.