Mad Hatter Scarves

Last year, when Alice in Wonderland came out, I made a Mad Hatter scarf that was purchased by a friend in Missouri.  Recently, I was asked to make another one by someone who is preparing a Red Glove Review costume for the Mad Hatter.  The center scarf was sent to her.  But I love this design and made a couple more at the same time using a soy wax batik technique.  Black is a difficult color for silk dye, if you use the common Procion dyes rather than a custom silk dye (which I didn't have in black).  You get a dark purple range of colors, and the bright yellow hardly takes overdye.  But it gives a bright and varied colorway.  These scarves are available in time for Valentine's Day, $18 each including shipping if you email ktibbits at lrec.org .

Tibbits Blue TieDye Quilt

Here's a joyous riot of colors in this quilt made for my husband's father and step-mother.  It features a lot of  fabrics from Keepin U N Stitches at Jay, Oklahoma and the centerpiece is one of my hand-dyed Kona panels.  I machine-stitched the strip pieces and applied custom machine quilting, including a few mysterious words in the stitching.... such as the fact that it was quilted on Solstice 2010.  If you are in this geographical area, rent the longarm machine at the quilt and fabric shop above, for about $10 an hour to do your very own machine quilting--- you can buy back and bat there, and run your backing seam.  Then Keepin U N Stitches will provide you with thread from their choice or you can bring your own tread and bobbins if you have something particularly unusual in mind. 

New Art Series

Dinner Napkin or Kitchen Towel

The good news about December is that it is my most productive month for Fluffy's Compleat Boutique.  The bad news is that I may not be able to write a daily blog.  I'll at least try to post a fiber art picture each morning, and I hope to be back in full swing with full blogs from time to time.  This morning's image is a dinner napkin.  I love to make these because they're perfectly flat and symmetrical so it is possible to get a lot of feathery dye migration.  This one is going with 4 other different ones of various styles, to an Etsy customer.  I'm also making some for Oklahoma Food Co-op customers and as giveaways for the workers at OFC Central Processing in OKC.

Water Tees

See the sleeve at the upper righthand side?

I recently finished about 30 or so Water Tees.  These are tiedye shirts in plain cotton that I've dyed to look like water.  In this series I wanted to give the impression of looking into water.  The bottom of the shirt is at the lower end of what you see, and the top of the shirt around the neck is at the top of the pic.

I like doing multiple shirts in one design becaue it gives me a chance to learn and refine my techniques, getting ever closer to the visual I am trying to master.  Wish I could post 30 pics here.  Water tees are available by special request.  Because I use less-expensive tees for most of my shirts, you may have to wait or give me the shirt you'd like heavier weight shirts (midweight) were used for perfecting this design.

On Facebook, my friends voted for this design as most popular when asked to like the shirt that looked the most like water.  Facebook Water Tees Album

Cherokee Syllabary Cherry Silk Scarf

Here's an interesting new design.  I made this silk scarf using syllables from the Cherokee language.  I won a benefit auction for a used working Nacho Cheese heater, and converted it to a soy wax heater.  I keep the was there all of the time, and when I am planning to do soy wax resist batiking, I flip the switch.  Like a double-boiler the water heats the wax to a low melt, and I don't have to fiddle with the dangerous microwave in my utility room-slash-art studio.  I rarely work in reds, but was making a peppermint swirl tiedye tee for a custom order and had prepared the soy wax resist lettering in advance.  This is made using analine dyes of 3 blended shades of red, so it has shading and is not just a solid vat red.

Most of the clothes in stores is made from cloth which was vat-dyed.   The cloth goes thru a batch of dye and is highly agitated (although not mad ) in order to achieve a consistent monotone of color.  If you've a friend who tells the same joke over and over, you can appreciate how I feel about solid monotone colors.  It is just boring.  It is done because vat dyeing looks better when fabric is dyed before the clothing is constructed.  Or, only after clothing is constructed does nonvat dyeing "look right."  Basically, its easy, quick and cheap to vat dye... if you're doing millions of, ie, yards.

Much more time-consuming and thus expensive is anything ombred (ohm-burred) where the colors shift like watercolor, or tied and dyed as in tiedye and mudme.  This scarf was time-consuming because of making each syllable and its pronunciation.  (Not all Cherokee Syllables are there.  My chart shows 13 rows of 6 columns and some columns have 2 syllables as in Ga Ka and Dla Tla.).  The dyeing itself was rather simple compared to some dyes I use which are prepared with exotic stuff like inner bark, heartwood, fungus, bugs and the like.

This sweet cherry scarf is being listed at Island Retreat on etsy.  You will find a link on the right, perhaps to this very scarf if it is listed.

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Mad Hatter Bandana, Inspired by Alice in Wonderland

 

Here's a quarter-section of detail from another Alice In Wonderland-inspired fun piece of wearable art.  It is a soy wax batik resist cotton bandana in a dreamy kaleidoscope of colors.  Everyone should have a bandana.  tie it on your backpack or day sack and you'll always have something to carry pretty rocks in.  Stop by a mountain stream and wet it down for a neckerchief cooler that is good as an air conditioner in the backwoods.  Gather radishes and baby greens in it.  Clean a geocache with it.  Summon a helicopter when lost.  Wave it at a Saints game.  Wear it to Alice in Wonderland.  Pull your hair back.  Or, if you don't have hair, then the curls on this bandana are a colorful suitable alternative.

One only.  $15 includes shipping.  Artisan original.  Look for more items of this nature at Fluffy's Compleat Boutique in the Oklahoma Food Co-op.  Or visit some of the 3 etsy shops by clicking one of my items for sale in the righthand margin of this blog.

Cherokee Syllables Quilt Top

Back in Fall, on a beautiful sunny day, I took this quilt top outside for a natural light picture.  It is comprised of commercial cotton print strips and hand-dyed discharged batik strips with Cherokee Syllables and the pronunciation of each syllable.  Cherokee language has about 84 syllables, so this is just a sampling.  I've made quilt tops of all the letters, and I have posted a sister to this quilt.

[This one is twin, $75 as a top, and can be expanded with a couple of border strips in a color of  the purchaser's choice.  It is $350 fully finished if you'd prefer, with the buyer's choice of batting, backing material (solid or print), thread and choice of whether freehand quilted or quilted with a recurring pattern.] 

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To my Sweetie, Friedrick:
(You know him as Dennis)
Happy Anniversary!  Five years ago today, we stood on Sun Beach in Jamaica at sunset, and vowed to cherish each other for so long as we both shall live.  Never have I regretted loving you, and every day I love you a little bit more.  You're my best friend and partner, my confidante.  I thrive in your love, and I thank you for being the kindest and most tender, funny, talented person I know.  Don't turn 'roun the vehicle... we've got a ticket for the Strange Loop!  Life has many fun adventures for us yet.
~Luv Fluff

Hopscotch Quilt Top

In Summer after 2nd grade, my mother was a college student at Northeastern State College.  (Today it is Northeastern State University).  There, I attended a Summer School program, the students of which were mostly comprised of the children of professors and the children of students.  My mistake-- I traised my hand when they asked which students were third graders because that is what I was going to be.  Apparently, that got me into the class of students who would be moving along to fourth grade.  For a couple of days I attended in the older classroom, and then realized I was in with the older kids, so the teachers moved me back to my age mates.

That was the summer that I learned to play hopscotch.  We'd draw boxes on the sidewalk of the Old Bagley Building at NSU, and hop as many squares inside the lines as we could.

This is a quilt top I named Hopscotch.  See the alternating footpath?  Our hopscotch grid was never this simple or regular.  This top features a good bit of fun hand-dyed cotton fabric.  Imagine that each square is sort of a full-color rohrschach test.  I see one that looks like Earth, Cherry Fudge Sundae, Stormclouds, Looking Into Water.  I make up names for the tiedyed and hand-dyed panels and strips that I create.  It helps me to keep them straight about what might go where when I am quilting.

(This small quilt top is for sale $75 as-is.  If someone would like to buy it fully-finished, the price would be $350 to include a choice of batting, backing, thread color,  machine quilt pattern (or freehand) and shipping.)

Join the Oklahoma Food Cooperative

Several years back on a snowy winter day we held a startup meeting in Tahlequah for Oklahoma Food Coop members who might join in the NE part of the state.  Now today Coop has thousands of members and once a month, from all across Oklahoma, producers deliver to OKC where goods are sorted and go back out to several thousand folks who ordered fresh Oklahoma-made goods.  Producers offer a vast variety of foodstuffs and other useful things.  You can get buffalo, lamb, and in the past you could get rabbit, deer and tilapia.  Great free range chicken is available, plus nice organic meats and veggies in season.  In Summer, feast on soft fruit from peaches to figs.  In winter, you can still get squash and prepared foods which have been put up all year round in waiting for the lean season.

 

Co-op Instigator, Bob Waldrop Checking the Bread at one of our very first Co-op Board of Directors Meetings.  Food is a big part of the Co-op-ing that we do. 

One of the most amazing things about the Coop is that it runs on volunteer labor.  Volunteers do the sorting in OKC and they do the sorting at the delivery sites.  The producers prep their goods and enter their own products online, and consumers buy online a week before delivery.  It is exciting when orders first open, because everyone tries to get there in time to get some of the first dozens of eggs or a limited quantity of fresh butter or heavy cream, greek yogurt, or cowboy cheese, washing powder.  So, I'm opening it up to ongoing discussion, and maybe some of the coop members will drop by and post his or her favorite item.  Today my fave is the shampoo soap, because it makes my hair so soft and curly!  I used to get very expensive nice Aveda hair products, but I can't leave this soap alone.  Today I cooked chocolate bread with the organic chocolate from one of the coffe companies in the coop.  It made for rich bread that is not sweet but very sophisticated in flavor.  I love the coffees too, and shop from all 3 coffee producers each month to stay in stock.  The statewide Annual Meeting is a food and friend-making extravaganza, taking place soon.  If you join in time, don't miss it.  

Details:  Visit www.oklahomafood.coop  Members join for about $50 (one time) and pay each month for their buys, picking up at the closest location of which there are many statewide.

At Oklahoma Food Cooperative, find Fluffy's Compleat Boutique listings for tees and clothing in sizes for adults, children and babies.  You can find quilt tops and quilts made of hand-dyed fabric by artist Kathy Tibbits which are not available any place else.  Some hemp and hemp/cotton tees and skirts are sold via the co-op.  Organic cotton shirts are occasionally available there.  Gourmet kitchen goods from Fluffy's can be purchased at Oklahoma Food, from time to time.  This usually includes potholders or hot pads, and sometimes chef aprons, kitchen towels and dinner naps, placemats, and refrigerator magnets.