Summer Studio at work

It is ironic how it took me most of the Summer to set this spot up and run it efficiently, and here we are at the end of August. Soon, I will have to shut it down for the winter.

I can only count on a few more days of super warm temperatures - such as this for surface design to really cook.


Maybe if I am really lucky, this September might offer a couple of warm days, but the warm humid nights for curing are already gone.


Above, is a shot looking to the West with the pot belly stove - it currently serves as a drying rack for rubber gloves. On the North wall below, I have added one more shelf to the ones that were already there. This gives me an 8 foot work bench. I found a microwave at Zellers for $49. so it has a place of honour next to the bench.
The table that came with the shack is too small, so I have the padded work surface propped up on plastic storage bins as a temporary measure.

I have discovered that everything needs to be in sealed containers as there are a lot of lively little creatures roaming around at night looking for anything that looks like a nest. In the mornings, I am usually greeted with a bevy of spiders in mid construction mode.

These chairs take up too much room so I hung them on the wall. They make great 'occasional shelves' until someone comes to visit:-)

Now here is the beauty of this place, this piece was left like this uncovered overnight and was still damp in the morning - perfect!

Oh, a word about how I get water down here...here's how -
Here is my sink. This old picnic table has a new lease on life.

and here is the French drain I built with my own two hands. I got this idea from Marian Reid who offers marvelous posts on the Dyerslist. I dug a two-foot hole that leans away from the shack and filled it with three bags of gravel - I embellished it with a necklace of stones from the cliff. It is both beautiful and practical - thanks Marian!
These are yogurt cups with freshly mixed dye sitting in sodium alginate that will need a stir before dye painting. Below is a piece waiting to be placed on my new drying rack.


Here is my drying rack. I bought this at Zellers (same day as the microwave) also for $49. I thought I would need to build something expensive or elaborate. This wall came with its own racks, eight in total, and only needed to be bolted to the wall. I use eight insulation foam pieces 24'' x 48'', each to stretch the fabric - they are light weight and wipe down easily.

Not glamorous but these three dedicated electrical lines (got them for my birthday back in July) are what keep this place humming: the fridge, the microwave and all sorts of heating plates and irons.

Cool eh? Cool for real though, pretty soon.

Art Shack Underway...or

How I spent Canada Day, Independance Day, and my Birthday week.
I have come across several posts recently from fellow surface designers about how dyeing in hot humid summer months produces superior results i.e. better dye exhaustion and deeper colours. MX procion dyes are cold water dyes in name only... what they really really really want to quote the Spice Girls is an ambient temperature between 70 and 90 degrees (20 -25 C). That translates well for southern Ontario's hot humid summer weather that we regularly try to escape from with modern air conditioning.
So I went dockside and took another look at our neglected storage shed. I saw its future as a hot wet studio for the summer months. It had 'Art Shack' written all over it!
In its glory days, this shed/shack was a pre-war cottage built on a narrow ledge giving out onto the St Lawrence River. It had a kitchen, a bathroom, electricity and running water. Sadly, all this was removed except for the structure when we built our home (zoning laws).

I started with an exterior paint job, and spruced up the windows and their screens.
Here is an interior shot. Some of these windows have screens that open up, letting in gentle breezes off the water. I know my fabric will be very happy, but some of this furniture has to go.

Meanwhile, I painted, painted, painted. The old fridge might have been useful for storing dyes but it is an energy guzzler (the door doesn't close all that well) so its gotta go too. The pot belly stove has been disconnected and is too heavy to move, so it stays...an elegant reminder of bygone times.
I removed huge amounts of red indoor-outdoor carpeting along with its rotten under-padding, yuck. The carpet had been glued to tintest (?) that had been nailed to a layer of battleship linoleum...nails spaced every 4 to 6 inches apart (ugh!). What lay underneath were beautiful pine floor boards, painted deep yellow and green - how eccentric. I wonder when it was that deep yellow floor paint was fashionable?

Given that this will be a working studio and I will be dripping fabric paint and dyes, I don't plan to do a major floor-sanding job. Just enough to keep the floor very clean and functional for the fabric. I really don't mind the distressed look.

That's it for now. I'll keep you posted on progress as the summer unfolds.

Bad Day at Black Rock...

I am in my lab thinking that I am so smart, so well organized, there are all my concentrates lined up , and ready to go. Fabric is scoured, labeled, and piled consecutively, ready to be dyed.



Measuring tools are at the ready...all is well.
Suddenly, all hell breaks loose.
A 3 quart bottle of black dye concentrate bumps into me, falls to the floor and splats everywhere. This is not black dye, but black dye CONCENTRATE. Everything in the lab is contaminated with black.

A moment of silence (aka contemplation) a deep breath, and on to mopping, mopping and more mopping...The door to the garage will need repainting. Somehow white enamel paint absorbs dye concentrate permanently.
Ugh! What a mess....
I am looking for a silver lining...so I have decided to repaint the laundry room walls a rich golden yellow.
This will NOT happen again:-)
I need a bigger room...