All in a days work

So, today has been a busy pajama day... meaning, I've not had to leave the house. My favorite kind of days! I have spent the day getting all my little rust dyed fabric bundled ready to sell. These have turned out to be a lot of work! The rusting process takes several days, in and of itself. I can only do a couple pieces of fabric at a time and even then, I have to daily rework the pieces, unwrap and rewrap rusty objects, add more solution to speed up the process, etc... But then, once I'm happy with the patterns created, there is the laundering, ironing, and cutting to size. Then, as I was ready to create little Fat Quarter bundles, I thought, "Hmmm, now each piece is completely unique. If I bundle them, how will a customer know what the piece looks like to encourage the sale?" So, I came up with a solution. As you can see in the following photos of some of my sample fabrics, each piece is numbered. After putting on the black board with a number, each piece was individually photographed before bundling. Each bundle was then tied and labeled with the coordinating number. Now that I have all the photos, I will be printing them in wallet size photos which will become the price tag for each bundle. Now the customer can see what the whole piece of fabric looks like before purchasing. Almost all of the pieces are fat quarters with the exception of a few that were odd sizes. Those will be appropriately labeled, of course. I also put together "remnant bundles" which have smaller, odd size pieces grouped together. All of the fabric is cotton and repurposed with the exception of a gauze fabric. I did purchase that new. It's more difficult to work with but is wonderful. It will be so awesome in a layering process. I only have 6 bundles of it for sale. If I have time, I may go purchase more for rusting. I still have fabric in the rust pot. I have also done some ribbons and vintage trims which I will sell by the yard.

here's a sample of the gauze fabric below:

I find it interesting how many variations of pattern and color I have gotten using the same exact objects but a variety of cottons.

Now, this last piece is really cool. Do you see the face in the pattern? I spotted it immediately! I have saved this piece hoping to create something with it myself... unless I get an offer I can't refuse! LOL!

Well, I'm glad to have this done. I've worked the last week on three samples for a class I want to propose for CREATE 2012. Finished those samples yesterday but still have to do all the brain work... a.k.a. the writing part. I still have many classes to write and samples to do over the next few weeks as well as prepare for Art Unraveled! Busy, busy summer!