Midwest Travels--Part III, Quilt Festival

Kathy and I got up early on Saturday morning for the silk scarf dye-painting class with Heather Thomas.  It was a totally new experience for me.  After some color mixing instructions, we were taught three different techniques to color our scarves, using Dye-Na-Flow paint/dyes.  The first was painting three different colors on the scarf with a foam brush--meant to dry before the end of class so we could try some stamping techniques, if desired.  I wanted some recognizable shapes on my scarf so painted stripes and X's (and was the only one to do so!) in purple and two colors of green.

This is before stamping and heat setting with steam.  I love it!  The other two techniques were folding/dipping, and lastly, "resist" with rubber bands and stitching.  We took those home wet, in baggies, but were able to wear our first scarf out of the class.  Really fun and almost mistake proof--my kind of project!  After class, Mom and Florence joined us for lunch, some shopping, and viewing of the quilts. 

I took this picture especially for Shay, for her love of Matroyshka dolls.  Unfortunately, the lighting was not the best, being behind and above the viewer, but I hope you can see enough of the quirk and life in this entirely hand wrought, large quilt.

Look at the bunny Matroyshkas!  The stitchery and embellishment detail everywhere was beyond exquisite and must have taken many many happy hours, certainly deserving of its first place award. 

The rest of the photos I put into this slideshow.  You can also click on the photo to be taken to my Web Album and view the photos full size.  Enjoy!

(Note: All photos were taken at the International Quilt Festival, Cincinnati.)

Here on the right is Cousin Florence with my sister Kathy and me, wearing satisfied smiles with our scarves and sporting some very tired feet and lightened wallets!  Next post, Cousin Florence and Mom learn to dye paint silk scarves too, and reveal of scarf magic from our other classroom attempts.