cloth as background

[kathleen]

i was having trouble settling on a background for a family tree grouping i had put together - had tried to paint a tree, which showed promise until i ran out of room for the people.

i hit on the idea of scanning some pieces of fabric i have. one in particular appealed, though black calico and noisy, i fooled around with hsb and curves and got it to behave like a good background. worked real good. this was a lot of fun.

had a weird experience with a coupld of green pieces; they came out red, though i didn't do anything different to the scanner settings. looked about right when inverted.

anyway, just wanted to suggest a background source if you ever need one. look in your closet.

[jeaniesa]

Great idea Kathleen. I have one question though... I've had to scan clothing (kids Vietnamese clothing) for people wanting to know approximate colors/designs (don't have a digital camera) and I always seem to come up with a "moire" pattern (for lack of a better description - it really does look like a moire pattern that occurs from scanning photos from magazines). Did you run into this problem at all scanning your fabric? -Jeanie

[kathleen]

jeanie,

i scanned three pieces and one of them showed a good bit of moire, but not the one i used. it seems like katrin eisman has something about that in her book with follow-up somewhere in these forums. If I'd had to pause and figure out how to get rid of the moire, wouldn't have been quite so fun nor as fast as i needed it.

it's kind of funny - moire is cloth, before it ever was computer artifact. full circle.

[Rick]

Just to let you know, I put that background on a guy's pc here at work. (He's a "manly" man)

I'm timing it so when he comes in, all the ladies in our group are going to go "awww" when the pic comes up.




There are times when I have too much time on my hands.

Rick

[kathleen]

so glad to have a part in this . . .


ooooh, it's so cuuuute.

[Rick]

Well, it is a cool background, though. I sent it to a few people here.

plus, he needed to have a payback. he stole my fish during the white elephant gift exchange yesterday.


Rick

[kathleen]

the kind that sings or the kind that stinks?

the holiday spirit is certainly rife where you are

[Rick]

Well, it's slow here, so we have to find ways to entertain ourselves and keep us from torturing our customers. (the users)

The fish that was stolen from me was a Beta Fish, complete with tank. But I got support from my manager who stole it from him, (who was promptly stolen from another co-worker), but he stole it back.

all I wound up with was a gift certificate for a restaurant.

Nothing says christmas like Cholesterol.

We're going to attempt to cook cocktail weenies on someone's new Candle later if you want to come.


Rick "God I need a life" Villarreal

[kathleen]

maybe you should all take the hypocratic oath, i think it's in there about, at least, "doing no harm".

re upcoming repast:
mmmmmm i can taste that smoky toasty tasty goodness now. bon appetit!
(don't drip sausage grease in the scented candle)

[Rick]

Well, I wished we all wished we would have read your warning about grease on the fire. I'll post pictures as soon as we can stop laughing at the little fire we caused.

The fish is good. It's resting on my manager's table to witness stupidity in action.

The ladies all came in as my partner walked in from the elevator. He was wondering why all the ladies were following him.

We all did "aww" how cute.

Another pleasant day in the life on the IT floor.

Rick

PS.

The Fish's name is IT.
Stephen king will probably call to sue.

[wof43]

Re: Cloth as background.............

I've found that there are a bunch of fabric/quilting/upholstery websites that have a wealth of fabric scans posted.

Most are usable for stuff that doesn't require really high res. At the very least, they provide a starting pattern for making your own backgrounds..........

I'll bet they have a lot more fabrics than you have in your closet *laugh*

regards,
wof

[kathleen]

hey wof

good idea. any links?

[chris h]

Kath,

There's a bit of cloth lurking in the archives that I posted some time ago. Can't remember where it came from.........

[Doug Nelson]

Part of my goal for the Archives is to have a section for backgrounds. Towards that one goal, I'd love it if people would send me interesting cloth scans. Same specs as for the rest.

And if someone can figure out how to take a flat cloth and make interesting folds and random ripples in it, let me know. We'll post it as a tutorial.

[kathleen]

here are some fabric links wof emailed me, haven't gone yet. wonder if i can post a whole bunch of links in one fell swoop. will soon see nope one at a time here they come thanks wof

http://www.fabricattic.com/ http://www.fabricclub.com/store/Default.asp
http://www.fabricdirect.com/
http://www.fabricplace.com/scripts/
http://store.yahoo.com/phoenixtextiles/natandab.htmlhttp://store.yahoo.com/phoenixtextiles/ http://www.equilter.com/ http://www.fabricmuseum.org/ http://www.fabricshed.com/ http://www.fabfabrics.com/