new stuff in my Etsy shop

No one could accuse me of not enjoying a little color and a bit of texture in my work! These are all detail shots of items I just added to my online JaneVille Etsy shop. I'm teaching  at CREATE in Southern California (May 18, 19, & 21st) and preparing my wares to sell at the ARTIST FAIRE held at the Hilton Orange County/Costa Mesa on Friday, May 20, from 6:00-9:00pm. In the meantime, they'll be up on ETSY, and then the shop will close for a week while I'm at CREATE.

Beets & Pomegranates

First let me say, this is NOT a tutorial. Merely an experiment that my professional cloth dyeing friends would cringe at. I read somewhere that if you boil fresh beets in pomegranate juice it would make a lovely shade of pinky red. So, I had to try it. (Of course, I did no prepartion to any of the fabric. I used some fine muslin, cheesecloth, cotton batting and silk organza and just stuck it in there with the hot juice and cut up beets!)

I let it dry naturally, then stuck it in the dryer to further heat set it. Came out gorgeous, didn't it?

Above is the cotton batting.

Someone on Facebook asked me if it was washable and lightfast...So I washed some strips of my dyed fabric with synthrapol. See photo above. (I haven't tested the light fastness yet.)

And since the pot of beets and pom juice are still in the garage, I dipped a piece of watercolor paper in it, in prepartion for the Sketchbook Challenge  theme of 'resist' this month. (I used spray gesso and a stencil to get that flower pattern, THEN dipped half in the beet/pom juice)
Note: I'm telling you all this, in case, in the future, you purchase one of my art quilts and you detect a slight smell of pomegranates and beets...you'll know why!!

Tiny Tutorial: Cloth Covered Journal

 detail of handmade journal by Jane LaFazio

I created this journal with unprimed artists canvas, spray gesso, Luminarte twinkling H2Os, hand carved stamps, grommets and my sewing machine. The interior pages are watercolor paper.

I used purchased stencils and spray gessoed them on the canvas. 
      
After the gesso was dry, I used a variety of Luminarte Twinks to color the canvas.
     
The color is bold when wet, and dries lighter.


I put it outside to dry thoroughly.


 
And sprayed it again with spray gesso and a stencil or two. I love the heavily layered look.
  
Back in the studio, I stamped directly with the bottle and my hand carved stamps over the surface.

hand carved stamps by Jane LaFazio

 


I stamped on commerical fabric too. I added batting to the back of my canvas cover, and  cut out the flower and free motion stitched it to the canvas.





I stitched around some of the stamped shapes too.



Above is the cover, then a layer of batting and at the bottom, a piece of fabric for the interior of the bookcover. I stitched them all together, down the center binding.

in progress~ detail of handmade journal by Jane LaFazio

  
I stitched around the edge of the cover, then zig-zaged stitched a few times around the edges.
  

 detail of handmade journal by Jane LaFazio

This elephant is another journal cover in progress.

 detail of handmade journal by Jane LaFazio

handmade journal by Jane LaFazio

I added grommets in the center spine and the edge of the book cover, and cut watercolor paper to fit, and attached it to the spine with ribbon.

handmade journal by Jane LaFazio

handmade journal by Jane LaFazio

handmade journal by Jane LaFazio

Check out my teaching schedule here.

in the studio...

Working on a Big Book for an upcoming class I'm teaching at CREATE this month in Costa Mesa, CA...

And the randomly selected winner of Laura Wasilowski's book Fanciful Stitches, Colorful Quilts is Cheryl 
She wrote: i love getting to know neighbors and creating neighborhoods - in friendships, online groups, organizations - so creating quilts with houses on them cries out to me - I would love to find new secrets in the book!  Cheryl, email me with your mailing address!