AlishaVernon.com

First you spread this special watered down paint over a damp cloth and then place objects on top. Expose to sunlight or a lamp until dry and the cloth under the objects will be white. I used white cotton interlock for the fabric and my objects were some small plants I had pressed. I framed the ~5″ x 7″ piece of cloth and hung it on my wall. I thought it looked pretty cool.

I spent my Friday night using my new sewing machine to make this masterpiece. (Those are my husband’s hands modeling the toy, just so you don’t think I have man hands, and my dog Wiley demonstrating it.)

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I’ve been doing a lot of teaching myself to hand dye fabric, through quite a bit of trial and error. I’ve done direct application (tie dye), vat dyeing, and fabric dyeing in a washing machine. I love color, so dyeing is a lot of fun. It’s like before it’s a plain white fabric and then something magical happens and it has a whole new life. So far washing machine dyeing is my favorite. The tricky part is remembering to set the machine back to agitate so it doesn’t drain before the fabric has had enough time in the dye bath. I bought a timer at Wal-Mart yesterday, but I broke it. Jim said, “Never buy anything, that needs to work, at Wal-Mart.” He should write a book of wise sayings.

I like to call this piece “In Search of the Perfect Pink”

So just what have I been doing on my, more than a month long, haitus from blogging, you ask? Have I been making any art at all?

My next few posts will attempt to fill you in…….if ya wanna know.

EMBROIDERY

I’ve been doing a lot of teaching myself to hand embroider and getting my technique just right to create nice letters with minimal fabric pulling around the letters. I’ve also been playing around with tie dye. Below is a picture of 4 tie dyed hand embroidered onesies that I did for the Magdalene Home. It’s a home in Medford where teen girls can live, who are either pregnant and/or have children and have no where else to go. It’s kind of interesting how I even found out about this place. I remember Jim and I were on a drive and I was in a pensive mood. I was thinking about things that I want to do with my life, and so on. I was asking God to give me some guidance, or something. I closed my eyes and I got sort of, and image. Pretty vague, but all I knew is that it was a place where pregnant women, who where in need of something, would come. Later, out of curiosity I started Googling to see what kind of organizations there were like that, in my area, and that’s when I discovered the Magdalene home. I didn’t think much about it for almost a year until I started making these onesies. I got an itch to donate or help out, and making things for people has always been my favorite way of showing my love, so I emailed the director and asked if I could make some onesies for the babies that live there. She was very excited and said “of course.” She invited me to come by for a tour and to hang out with the girls and teach them how to make them. I was super excited, and last month my sister and I drove to Medford and got a tour of their place and dropped off these onesies. (I have them wrapped so you can’t see that whole thing.) I hope they liked them.