Picasso has nothing on LLL

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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

I love all sorts of different types of paper and I do hear ya H re: water colour and water! ;)


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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

My latest creation that will go across the end of my bed to add "COLOUR" to my life! ;) It is a "stitch in the ditch" type quilt that is easy peasy beginner level sewing ;) (MY LEVEL - easy)

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I love batik fabric and always look for chunks of it in the Thrifts around here.
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Grandad »

That is very colourful LLL and, not knowing what I am talking about, I assume it is made of strips machined together and then edge bound with a bias binding. ;)

I am intrigued with what you call Batik fabric. It looks as if your fabric strips are of printed fabric whereas true batik is from the wax resist process. As just said, I don't know anything about fabrics, except that I prefer natural fibres for my clothes, but I have seen batik work in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Here is an example of two colour dyeing batik table cloth in Sri Lanka.
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Not questioning your description LLL but why is a printed fabric called batik. Maybe RS would have a comment on this?
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

I highly doubt what they're calling batik here is REAL batik. I actually bought MOST of that fabric in Hawaii (over multiple trips over the years and trucked it home. I've also found lots of "batik" in thrift stores and have collected it all. It IS 100% cotton and cotton in Canada is RIDICULOUSLY expensive i.e. Hawaii $5/yard while here the same cotton batik is $27/meter however that being said this same fabric batik in Washington State is probably close to $12/yard.

I'd almost guess that it is called Batik simply because the pattern on lots of it is like a blurry tie-dyed effect although there are patterns that are repetitive.

I think the real batiks are as you described while mine are the kind that are used for quilts, pillows, bags - stuff like that.

My style of quilting that is called "stitch in the ditch" and OMG I nearly go blind trying to do that. I'm do not intensely quilt (that takes too much talent). I'm what I refer to as a simple hobby quilter. No patterns, not much effort, able to sew kinda a straight line and rely heavily on patterns in the fabric to look appealing vs the actual sewing!

Mostly my sewing amuses me. Today I've used up mega scraps I've also collected (OMG :o could I actually be a fabric hoarder?!?!?!? :o ) , cut them into 5" squares and sewed them into strips with white fabric in between. Will make a rag blanket (and again am relying heavily on the jumble of colour to OVERPOWER the lack of REAL quilting! ;) )

!!!POTTERY!!!

Having taken a page from your book Grandad I wrote a long missive to the Powers that Be who run the Seniors Center and by extension the Pottery Studio.

So far they have acknowledged they got my concerns (and did I mention on finding out the email of the man in charge I also coerced 5 of the other Senior Ladies to also email him???) and are opening the Studio for 3 hours tomorrow so we can catch up! And they have agreed to refund me the $30 I just spent on clay (but that was only a minor point that I threw in knowing that when we THOUGHT the studio was going to go there were 4 of us who bought new bags of clay)

It is like throwing a crumb to an ostrich but I'll take it and see how else I can coerce them to keep it open so I can finish my stuff.

Will have to see how it goes...........now to write and tell them how much time is REALLY needed to finish a piece of pottery as I know they don't have a clue.....the work of the wicked is never truly done! ;)
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Ruby Slippers »

Looks good, LLL. Stitch in the ditch is a useful way of anchoring 3 layers together and a lot of quilters use it. Of course, some quilters have turned free motion Quilting into an art form and very beautiful it is too! I am in total awe of some of the work I see and can only envy their skill. Grandad, there are some very good videos on YouTube showing the process of making batik fabric, which is made using wax resist, as you rightly say. Tie dying is quite different but can be just as beautiful. Over the last month, a lot of the quilters here in the UK have been experimenting with a process called snow dying (I bet you can't guess why!) with varying degrees of success. The quality of the dying can depend on the concentration of the dyes, with Procion dyes giving a good effect. Most batiks are made in the East but I'm not sure how or why the name 'batik'. I have a friend who absolutely adores batiks, particularly the muddy purples, greys and greens. I, personally, don't like them, although I'm a great fan of tie-dying. I tend to go for bright true colours, but it's strokes for folks. I'm giving 3 workshop days this year at my club, so am up to my eyes at the moment in working out a Bargello design and two Stained Glass Window effect wall hangings! I really must learn not to take anything I make that is complicated to the club, because I get clobbered for a workshop day - all for nothing! :urm:
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

@RS - I saw, through the Quilting Guild here (not that I'm even remotely close to doing it) the Stained Glass Window effect Wall Hanging quilts and if nobody else on here is aware the results of a quilt doing in this pattern or style are GORGEOUS!

If you have some wall hangings done this way please post photos - they are truly fantastic to see. Gorgeous!

I'm not even close to doing anything like that but I have seen it and they're beautiful. True pictures that give a multi-dimensional appearance and truly add to any room.
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Ruby Slippers »

I found out that 'batik' originated in Java.
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Grandad »

Ruby Slippers wrote:I found out that 'batik' originated in Java.
That's where I first saw it RS when in Jakarta on business. Didn't take any pictures until the next time we saw it in Sri Lanka. It is quite a primitive and labour intense process with each colour being resisted before the next colour is dyed. It is truly an art form. :up
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Did make it to the pottery studio today and :( the kiln that most of my stuff was in didn't fire properly however this was on the bottom shelf so it must've gotten hot enough to fire. The latest house to add to my street.

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So far my street looks like this. I have one more IN the kiln and it'll get fired shortly.......

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...........BUT today being the last day meant EVERYBODY was down there banging elbows, trying to do everything. The lady beside me ended up slopping a whole bunch of glaze onto my next house so while I got it washed off it meant the piece was probably too wet for me to glaze but I did anyway in the hopes it will fire ok - maybe, hopefully, perhaps.......She also managed to splash glaze onto two of my bowls which I put glaze on but the were way to wet to put onto the shelf for firing so there they sit maybe cleaned sufficient for the splashed glaze not to show but ??? Guess I'll see IF they ever get fired or ?? Not happy at all with how the pottery studio situation has been handled.


Now - back to the quilting......and batiks. These are 3 of the entire bunch I bought in Hawaii - there is repitition to the pattern and while some are only a couple of colours others are LOTS of colours.


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And this photo is more for RS but this is how the end of batik rolls are sold - by the pound in bags where you'll get anything from 1" to 3" of mixed batik. These sell for $10 USD/bag and are quite popular. You get about 60 strips and this is what I went through shaving 'em off to 2 1/2" strips to make the throw for the end of my bed. Mostly the 'by the yard' or 'by the meter' fabric is sold on bolts that the girl will measure and cut off.

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Lastly this is found in the batik section of stores but is almost like a silk screen whereby layers are printed or painted onto fabric. For some reason this appealed to me but I've never actually used it or sewn it.

9025
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Grandad »

I DO like your little village LLL :up Hope you have an opportunity to add more to it, Perhaps a little shop or a post office? ;)

Those Batik sheets just go to show how much time it takes to paint the wax resist for each colour and boil the wax out before the next colour is added. I have heard said that the very large and multi coloured examples, probably for the royal family, can take about a year. A repetitive pattern can be produced by the use of wooden print blocks to apply the wax. It is a very ancient process even before it became an art form in Java.

Here comes another aside, but, a very similar process is used today in the electronics industry when producing printed circuit boards. The board is a hard resin based material (SRBP) which has a thin layer of copper on one, or sometimes both sides. The area of the 'circuit' is printed with a 'resist'. The exposed unwanted copper areas are then etched away with acid leaving just the circuit. The resist is washed away and the copper is 'tinned' with solder, usually with a solder flow bath, which makes the fixing of components possible.

And even Alexa didn't know that :lol: :lol:
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

@Grandad - I didn't know that either. With the fabrics I showed you I think they actually just copy that process. I'm sure somewhere in the process the waxing and boiling was done to create the original pattern but now I'm betting it was somehow copied via computer, the dyes mixed and the fabric run through a mill. ;)

I also have fabric (somewhere in the stash) of what people refer to as TONGA. It is mostly browns and reflects the style and patterns used by the people of the Pacific Island of Tonga. It has the same idea of repetitive patterns but mostly in all shades of brown from black to coppers to beiges.

Very interesting how fabrics and patterns are developed.

On another note - re: pottery I'm hoping the City & Seniors Center & Pottery get it together. Yesterday was awful down there are most were like me rushing to try and get what we did finished and most fairly upset.

I arrived about 15 minutes early and was carrying my glazes etc and looking for a spot to sit. Another lady came over and asked me if she could "help me" as I looked lost.

I said 'no' I was just deciding where to sit (and I was - the soft leather chairs with no table to put my box on or the hard chair and put my box on the table) and was waiting for pottery.

She then said she was the lady about 10 days prior who runs it and quote "She looked just awful. She looked like hell."

This lady went on to tell me that she was a Director and the Board and it was such a shame the City couldn't find anybody else to replace her!! That lead me to explain that "I" had volunteered as had 4 other women. She said she knew but "WE" didn't have the credentials!!!!! (Almost lost it!) "I" don't have the credentials to sit in a room and monitor 20 or so women intent on pottery!?!?!?!

AND - how might the City know as they haven't bothered themselves to call or talk to any of us.......and I did repeat my conversation with her probably 5 times.

We're going to get together and write and/or hopefully meet as the City does still have the one fellow who is teaching 'til end of April and he fires their kilns (if that is their worry) and nobody who makes pottery touches the Kilns anyway.

Not happy with the info from the lady who is a Director as it simply wasn't true but seemingly typical of Bureaucracy now.
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Ruby Slippers »

Very nice fabrics, LLL, but I still wouldn't voluntarily choose to patchwork with them. :( I do feel for you over your pottery class. I used to feel so frustrated when wheels etc. used to break down and we're still sitting there unusable a year later! In the end, I gave it up, and my hands were very grateful! The clay drew all the moisture out of my skin and my hands were in a terrible state! The local council eventually pulled the buildings down and sold the land for housing. Having said that, we still have quite a bit of Adult Educational classes around but they are expensive these days.
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

@RS - I am hoping that the Seniors Center will not figure out how expensive this class is and just not bother themselves to start running it again. There are private studios around here and the cheapest is $8/hour so $24/morning session which is also $100/month and quite frankly I am not making $100 a month level stuff! ;) I do it for the enjoyment and cause I like the other ladies who are there. I really don't want to go to a professional studio of production potters. That isn't me.

With batiks I think they an either you love 'em or not. No idea why they appeal to me but I quite like them although I do have a bias for loud colour at times. I think mostly the quilts I do are definitely not intricate (I have never taken a lesson and really don't know how to quilt) so I think I'm relying on the colour and pattern of the fabric to make up for lack of workmanship on my part! ;)
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Grandad »

I am always fascinated by the skills of artisans particularly in the east. These people are usually working in simple basic conditions but produce lovely things and every one is unique. Not wishing to labour the point but here are a few more pics on the subject of Batik.


This man and lady are applying the lightly coloured resist on large sheets before dyeing.
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this is a resist printing block for a repeating pattern. You can see in the middle of each edge where the repeat pattern would be matched then hand pressed down onto the fabric.
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Near to the Batik workshop there was a carpenters shop producing really nice carved furniture. I don't remember for sure but with their carving skills they most likely produced Batik pattern blocks..
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Mad Dilys »

In the TV programme Bargain Hunt yesterday a collection of I think 5 original blocks sold for about £25. I thought that was very cheap actually.
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Grandad »

Yes I saw them MD. Limited appeal I suppose but that sort of thing does appeal to me. :up
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Horus »

They used to print Wallpaper in the UK using the same technique of printing blocks. :up
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Mad Dilys »

:))) Don't forget books!
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Horus »

True, but I was thinking more like the the wallpaper Pugin used when he designed the Palace of Westminster and they had to recreate some more using that technique for some restoration work.
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Very interesting photos Grandad. What always amazes me is wondering HOW people first thought to do something and how the ideas grew and expanded. It also fascinates me how some groupings of people like some patterns while others preferred different patterns. Guess it also depends on the level of technology they have too.

I quite like the picture of the printing block and to me that was a very cheap price for 5 of them.

Wonder how long that lady labored over her fabric from start to finish?
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