Marsbarn Designs...

Batiking: Color Play part 3

The layering of greens and blues was a popular color
combination with wide variations. 

This fabric started as a blue, was then dyed with bright
green, and topped off with dark green. 

This fabric of Lady G (not to be confused with my Sweet
G)  started as bright green, and then was dipped in blue. 

I am particularly fond of the krinkling of the wax in
this fabric and mottled nature of the blue.

This fabric, also by Lady G, is the reverse of the one 
previous.  It started blue, and then was placed in bright
green.

This fabric by GS, is a cousin the previous one.
It began as a teal, and then went into the bright green.
I find it interesting how different this fabric is to the
other two.   

I found that the order of the colors in the blue/green
combinations was more important than with the
red/orange combinations.  

Batiking: Color Play part 2

With this workshop, I paid more attention to 
how certain colors overlaid others.  The light
brown dye was particularly popular this time.

All of these fabrics had brown as their second layer of 
color.

This fabric started as a lovely rosy red. K painted 
freeform flowers with her wax before putting it in the 
brown dye.

I thought this combination turned out beautifully.

G'ma R used a section of chain to add wax to orange
fabric before adding brown.  Just lovely!

This is another one of K's freeform fabrics, interestingly
it is the same color combination as G'ma R's fabric, but
it reads very differently.  This orange/brown combination
has a definite green-ish cast.  I wonder if K's orange
was a brighter orange to start with.  When I dyed 
the orange base fabrics, there was a fairly wide variation
in intensity.  

This fabric is one of mine. It started as a sky blue, 
before I sparingly waxed it with Jade's batiking stamp.
I adore this fabric.  I love what the brown did to the
blue.  The krinkly quality of this fabric makes me 
really happy.

The last of the 5 fabrics that were overdyed, 
started with a magenta-y fabric to which I added
waxed circles ala a cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels. 

Is this a bad photo?  Sort of.  This fabric turned out to
be a lovely color with poor definition.  There just  
wasn't enough room between the base color and the
brown for contrast.  As such, this fabric is horribly
difficult to photograph.  Still, it is a lovely color,
so I am happy with it!

I realized after I was done with my last round of dye,
that I hadn't dyed any white fabric brown.  So, I don't
have a record of what the light brown dye actually
looks like alone.  It's something I'll need to do next 
time around. 

Batiking: Color Play

One of the things that I really enjoy about
batiking is watching the colors come together.

This lovely, bright piece started with an orange base,
and then had red layed on top.

While this piece started yellow, then was dyed orange 
by using a hot pink layer, and then (after a second
layer of wax) was dyed red.

(Close up of the yellow/pink/red fabric)  

This fabric started as a bright yellow and then went into
an orange dye bath. I find it interesting that the
yellow-orange combination ends up being so close to
the yellow-hot pink duo.  

This fabric started pink and then went into a red dye.

Lovely isn't it?  The wax was applied with the batiking
stamp Jade gave me.  It's such a wonderful, easy to use
hand carved wooden stamp. (Thank you again, Jade!) 

This fabric started white, was stamped with small
wooded stamp, dyed hot pink, and then was stamped 
again with a cookie cutter before being dyed red.
In this fabric (gorgeous, isn't it?), the pink almost
entirely disappeared. Her stamping is clear, but 
it looks white.  Quite curious. I do love how 
distressed the wax looks in this piece.   

Batiking: Fun, friends, and fabric

The latest batiking workshop was two weeks ago today,
it was a hot, slightly humid day, but we were able
to stay almost exclusively in the shade.  With some
judicious moving of the table and an extra long
extension cord we followed the shady areas in my
yard as the sun changed position. 

My plan was to loosely divide the day into two parts,
a morning shift of guests would run from 10-1pm, and
an a new afternoon crew would go from 1 pm to 4 pm,
with lunch from 12:30 to 1 pm.  I told my afternoon
participants that they could come early, so they could
join us for lunch.  

The day worked really well.  Two of my morning folks
had to leave briefly to attend to children, but with
the flexibility of batiking, they could jump back
in when they returned.  Lunch seemed to meet
everyone's needs.  Salami and cheese, bread and
crackers, watermelon and grapes, tabuli and hummus,
with strawberry lemonade and fizzy water.  Light
and cooling was the trend of the day. 

In all, there were 6 particpants, which made a nice
full feeling day without being overwhelming.
People talked and worked with wax, while I rinsed
fabric and monitored the dyes.  So. Much. Fun.

The final fabrics were all beautiful.  
So beautiful that it was hard for me to give them all
up.  Honestly. 

Deck carrier bags (or what to keep your Magic decks in)

Okay, it's roll out the new product time. 
I've been working on this idea for ages, but I've finally
finished fine tuning, and here it is...

Looks like one of my square bottom dice bags, no?
Well this bag is rectangular, not square, and it has a 
firm bottom.  (Yes, I said 'firm'.)  There's a layer of 
flexible mesh between the layers of fabric (so it's still
reversible!), so the bottom won't sag when you fill
the bag.  (No one likes a saggy bottom!) 

The bag is taller than my normal bag, 7 1/2" to be exact.  
The base measures 4" by 3".

Why those measurements?  Because that means this bag
is perfect to hold gaming decks.  You know those 
deck boxes?  (The ones that measure 2 3/4" by 1 7/8"
by 3 3/4") Two of them will fit in this bag, side by
side, or laying flat.

See what I mean?  

Oh, and there is a pocket on one side.  Sometimes you
have a card or a note or something you just need to
keep separate.  

Now, if you play a game that uses larger cards or
different deck boxes, just email me about making a
custom sized bag.  I'm happy to make you a bag to fit
your game!

You can read more about these deck bags, or any of 
my bags, here.

To buy Deck Carrier bags go to my Etsy shop.

Mr Fuzzypants, gets sent to reform camp

You may think this is a cute cat in a box, it is not.

This is a very, very naughty cat being prepared to be
shipped to one of those military boot camps that makes
good cats out of bad cats through push-ups and cleaning
bathrooms with toothbrushes. 

We started our morning picking up the garbage
Mr Fuzzypants had knocked over during a dull spot in
the night. 

Then, while I was walking Little e to school,
Sweet G's breakfast was interrupted by a horrible
crashing noise in the kitchen.  Mr Fuzzypants had climbed
on top of the kitchen cabinets (how is unclear) and had
pushed several dishes off the ledge.  The cat skeedaddled,
and Miss G started to pick up dish bits from the floor.  
Then, (Mr Fuzzypants was not done) she heard a new sound.
The sound of a cat on the dining room table eating her
breakfast!  

His cabinet crashing adventure netted one broken dish
(an antique Spode Buttercup lemon dish, damn cat) and
several toppled, but unbroken plates (including a plate that
fell to the floor, but was undamaged).  

I'm not sure if they'll let him write from Kitty Reform
Camp.  

Wherein Mom makes the first day of school more interesting

School has begun!

The first day was yesterday.  
Little e is settling into 3rd grade, and Miss G
is finding her place in Middle School.
The day went about as smoothly for the girls
as it could. (Homeroom is pointless, who knew?)

I have a head cold, courtesy of Miss G's camp
experience (Yay gift that keeps on giving!),
and then a yellowjacket took exception to my
being and decided to sting me as I walked to
meet Miss G after school.  I have a tendancy to
swell with these things, so after walking Miss G
home, I called Big E at work and gobbled up some
tastey Benedryl.  Big E made it home in record
time to make sure I didn't end up with a more
interesting evening, and then I spent the remainder
of the day in a drug induced, sneezy, snotty, stupor.   

The good news is that now, the day after, I have
minimal swelling, which is a relief since the last
time I was stung I had painful swelling for a week.
Phew.

from camp to coast for the girls, and the adults do that adult thing

Sweetheart G went directly from a week at camp,
to a week at the beach with Grand M, Little e, and Papa.
I know, right?  A week at camp, followed by a week
at the beach?  What could be better?

Little e helped me make graham crackers and
marshmallows to share with the beach house crew.
Big E and I didn't linger at the beach (beyond a taste
of s'more), we headed home for a week of adult time.

Let's not confuse "adult time" with "fun time".  While
the girls walked beaches, ate great food, read, and
made art, Big E worked and I did chores.

I washed, cleaned, dusted, cleaned, and organized.  
And cleaned.  Did I mention cleaning?
All of those "should do's" that get pushed aside, I did.
Little e's curtains were sewn and hung. Which should
thrill Little e.  (I'm fairly sure she's expecting her
curtains to be stalled on my To Do pile.)

It is nice to start the school year with a tidied house,
and school begins next week(!).  We'll see how long
the flat surfaces stay clear once the fury that is 
family life starts up again.

G goes to camp

Sweetheart G returned from sleepaway camp last week,
and we could see how she'd grown in the week she had
been away.  She looked so happy, so confident, so 
strong.  Camp was one of those experiences that we
had hoped would be good, but it was so, so much better. 

She slept in a teepee, wove a rag rug, paddled a boat
in a duck pond, played games, learned songs, took a
creek hike, tried archery, met new friends, and had
a ton of fun.  She can't wait to go again next year.