Yesterday I bought a new jim-dandy Manfrotto tripod with a head that is so solid and smooth, I can't believe I was using my rickety old tripod for so long!  I highly recommend the brand to anyone in the market for new equipment. I also purchased an electronic remote for the camera, which I knew I needed, but just never did get around to purchasing.  I have new Tungsten lighting on order, which should arrive next week.  But even without the new lighting (after having my husband give me a few lessons with the camera and "objective lens") I took these photos of my most recent work, Sunlight on Water.

The fabric is white Kona cotton which I hand-dyed, and Shibori dyed, with reactive dyes.  As soon as they came out of the dye bath I knew they were "water", so I pieced and appliqued them in a way that I felt looked like an impression of rippling water with the sun hitting the surface. The fan seaweeds were screened, using flour paste resist, and like my last piece, etched with a bamboo skewer. I used the gold printing ink left over from Jane Dunnewold's Tahoe workshop.  I drew the corals onto freezer paper, then meticulously cut them out with an Exacto knife.  I ironed the waxed side to my screen and printed using Stewart Gill Metamica paints.  The grassy seaweed is a pewtery green printing ink.  The entire piece is free-motion quilted.

The detail shows the quilting around each seaweed leaf and around all the corals.  Different colors were used on the "water" to correspond to the varying colors from the Shibori process.  The piece is 23"X27" and I will probably use this as one of my Fibervision exhibit pieces.

I am almost finished with a 12X12 for the Fibervision Embellishment Challenge, and will be posting that one in a few days.