Cut It Up

At our recent CFG Stitch Group meeting we discussed what to do with the fabric you have ice dyed. Often one finds fabric too precious to use and will allow it to linger waiting for the perfect idea. I prefer to come up with an idea and then create the fabric.

For my current design, I need yardage in similar color organic patterns. Ice-dyeing yardage provides a large background color pallet to use as is, cut, or overlay with other surface design methods.

Working with yardage can be cumbersome but it is helpful when you need the flexibility of larger sections.

The yardage is a background layer of color, texture and pattern that will be painted, cut, and manipulated many times during the design process. Before I whip out my rotary cutter and paint I take a before photo of a couple of potential sections.

Crank up the music and the fun begins.

SAQA Global Exhibition StitchPunk

I work on website updates almost every day, but somehow, I never get around to updating my own website. Although I am late in announcing, I am thrilled that my piece, EcoSarra, has been juried into the SAQA Global Exhibition StitchPunk.

The Call for Entry asked the artists to “reimagine a world through an alternate, extraordinary timeline. Imagine our bodies merged with our devices or a world shared with sentient robots or other life forms.

What would a refrigerator, a clock, or even a lawn mower look like if it ran on steam power?

What sort of people would live on the streets of a decaying metropolis, starkly divided between haves and have-nots, with police drones patrolling above and neon lights cutting through the thick, dirty air?

Will science and technology free us from mundane daily chores, or enslave us to a global corporate master?

The opportunities are endless. Artists are invited to explore the science fiction worlds of cyberpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk, biopunk, atompunk, clockpunk, nanopunk, and more!” (SAQA Global)

The title EcoSarra is a nod to Sarraceniaceae in my vision of Forest/Bio Punk.

EcoSarra

I gave up friends, family, and the outside world to create a future for my plants – my bioengineered family. The constant negative backlash over bioengineering forced me into my safe place, my world inside Green Lab. Along with my carnivorous babies, I grew, changed, and thrived as the outside world destroyed itself. My latest experiment, becoming a part of the chain, both absorbing carbon and creating my own form of oxygen may be the only way to survive the destruction. I look into the mirror and wonder if I will ever leave or want to leave. I become more and more like my babies every day. For now, we are safe inside Green Lab. Thankfully cockroaches did survive the disaster. Yum! Lunch!

Materials: Wire and mixed media armature, salvage army surplus, ice- dyed silk organza, various threads
Techniques: Armature building, assemblage, ice dying, hand-stitching

The first venues scheduled for the exhibition tour are:

New England Quilt Museum, Lowell, Massachusetts: April 30 - July 13, 2024
Festival of Quilts, Birmingham, United Kingdom: August 1 - December 31, 2024

More info will be available in the coming months on the SAQA website.

2023 SAQA Spotlight Auction

My 2023 SAQA Spotlight Auction piece, Stitch Study #1, is shipped and ready for the Toronto Conference. Now, I eagerly await joining it in Toronto in April.

The final piece is 6” x 8”. The Spotlight Auction will be an online event taking place during the 2023 SAQA Conference Pathways to Possibilities. The auction will be available on Handbid to a worldwide audience. All proceeds will help support SAQA programs.

Due to the small size of the artwork, here are a few more images highlighting the scale and detail of my hand stitching process.

Auditioning Threads — Auditioning Thread ©2023 Amanda Snavely

Detail of Stitch Study #1 Detail — Detail of Stitch Study #1 ©2023 Amanda Snavely

Moisture Variations in Dye Painting

Chapter 4 of Ann Johnston’s Color by Design is my favorite so far in our Dyeing Support Group. My favorite is the organic quality you get from painting on soda-soaked wet fabric and applying pressure to plastic over the top.

Thin Paste on Wet Fabric with Primary Colors - I like that you get secondary colors as the dyes bleed into each other; especially after pressing the plastic on top.

2nd sample of Thin on Wet Primary Colors

My Favorite - I love the surprise organic lines and shapes of the thin paste on wet soda-soaked fabric

Thin on Wet Secondary Colors and neutral created by adding the secondary colors together.

2nd Sample of Thin on Wet Secondary Colors

Textured Objects placed underneath wet soda-soaked fabric and thin dye painted with brush - I enjoyed this technique

Thin Paste on Dry Fabric is my least favorite. I can see circumstances where you would want less bleeding until the edges to keep some white or light areas. Maybe I would prefer it if I tried different shapes and colors.

Thick Dye painted on wet soda-soaked fabric

Print Paste painted on fabric before adding medium thickness dye painted on with sponge brushes. This was nice and evenly blended and then I decided to add additional colors with a dryer sponge brush. I don’t really like sponge brushes but they have their purpose. I much prefer using paintbrushes.

Combination of thick and thin colors painted on dry fabric

I was surprised how much more I enjoyed the exercises on wet soda-soaked fabric over the dry fabric. The fluid organic lines and intermixing of colors had interesting results. I will definitely spend more time with the same techniques and additional colors with varying thicknesses of print paste.

Dyeing Support Group

Do you feel quarantined, lonely, and still experience a desire to dye? If so, some of my friends and I are starting a Dyeing Support Group. I love to read art books, grab a couple of tips from each, but fail to ever complete the exercises. I am challenging myself to work through all the exercises in Color By Design by Ann Johnston. My friends and I are going to work at our own pace, as we all have other things going on even if we stay in our pajamas all day. All of those 1950’s photos of women wearing heels and a dress in the kitchen were obviously staged. Through zoom and email, we will cheer, curse, and share our experiences with each other. The book is our guide and as long as we all work in the order of the exercises we should be able to support each other. We have to get creative to find ways to stay creative and motivated to reach new goals.

Day 1

Dye Mixed and in the Fridge: Warning Sign for Kids that hang out in my basement

**My Studio Assistant, Indie**

It looks like she didn’t read the sign, but I promise she didn’t drink the dye.

Amanda Snavely

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