Mickey Lawler: Sky Dyes Queen

Mickey Lawler was the featured artist at the most recent San Diego Quilt Show. She did a number of free demonstrations during the show. Here's a picture of her mixing up some paints.

I greatly enjoyed her talk a picked up a number of tips that I wanted to share.

• Use seta color fabric paints for cotton or silk. She was using the transparent series. These paints do not make the fabric too stiff. She hand quilts fabric that has these paints. These paints will keep for years once mixed up as long as they are stored in a reasonably cool environment.




• Use insulation board covered with contact paper in a 4' x 8' sheet. It is lightweight and easy to store. She places them outside on saw horses and paints. She lets any paint that soaks through the fabric dry on the board. It will not transfer onto new fabric the next time you use it.




• Use natural sponges to make clouds and dappled dye. The best place to get these are at automotive stores. The art store prices are inflated.




• Mickey uses cotton broadcloth from Testfabrics. She says that with fabric paints you want a more dense weave so that the paint does not soak through the fabric and become more faint.

I bought Mickey's book, Sky Dyes. Many of my friends have loved her yardage for years. It is beautiful stuff. Perhaps at some point I will play with fabric paints again. I took a fabric dyeing class at Otis Parsons in the 1990s. We used procion fiber-reactive dyes. Unfortunately, these are carcinogenic. Mickey and I talked about this. She said that these seta fabric paints are completely non-toxic. Looks like the way to go.

On a personal note, I was really taken with the beauty of the local quilt show. I've loved Houston for the big show experience. But there's something special about your hometown quilt show. It's a community. You see your friends. There are local charity fundraisers. The local quilt guilds are there. Now that Houston has a big Long Beach, CA show one month before the San Diego show I am concerned about the survival of this all-volunteer local show. (Long Beach and San Diego are 2 hours away from each other.) I volunteered this year at the San Diego show. I will try to contribute next year as well.