Ugly Snow Dyeing

If there were a contest for creating the ugliest piece of snow dyed fabric, I would win it in a heartbeat! I started out with fabric and a nice pile of snow and these lovely dye colors.

Light and dark blue and my favorite, deep orange. Snow melts and dyes don’t dye like you think they will. This is what I got….

Not one spot of orange, lots of dingy gray and just plain overall UGLY. I really thought that with those colors I’d get some lovely shades of blue and some great pops of orange. I didn’t even get any of the lovely crystallization that makes snow dyeing so attractive.

I had a second batch going, with a red, a blue and some sage green, I think. It turned out much better, but I don’t think I’m going to be a fan of snow dyeing.

Trying to analyze what I don’t like and why…one thing is that even the lightest parts of the fabric look dingy, rather than pastel. Used ‘color blends’ of dye rather than pure colors. I knew they would separate out a bit, but these were not attractive. There were a few areas on the second batch that I think I would use, but mostly…not! Thought I had my color theory down right for this, but the blending was so not what I expected. Now I get to play with color theory again to try and figure out something I can overdye with that will make these pieces into something other than rags!

Conclusion: snow dyeing is not that appealing to me with this lack of success. I may try it again, with more pure colors, but it won’t be right away.

Besides, I actually had to go out into the snow and shovel it into the containers! Brrrrr!

Hand dyes to…

Nancy Gilpin is the name selected by my grandson in a random draw for my little giveaway. Email me with your address and I’ll get the fat quarters in the mail to you. Hope you enjoy!

And they were only a mystery because I hadn’t selected what to send until now…here you go, Nancy!

Results of Dye–er, WAX day

It took a week’s worth of newspaper to get the wax mostly out of the fabrics, and there were only 4 small pieces of fabric. I also did a hot water rinse in a bucket before I ironed. I won’t do that again…it makes a real mess and I don’t think I’m going to bother scraping wax off the bucket–it’s a goner! Unless someone has a better suggestion, I’ll be saving my newspapers and doing a lot more ironing.

Here are the results of the soy wax experiments:

Blobby wax = blobby image

First try with the fern tjap–still pretty blobby!

But I love how it turned out on this piece of fabric…less wax = better image

Using the stencil–usable but not what I intended or what the stencil really looked like!

This grid design is still one of my favorites.

This was just wax spatter on fabric that I did not like. After the overdyeing, it looks pretty cool!

And there was a bit of dyeing without wax and this one came out very interesting, though I’m not sure I’m in love with the colors I chose.

All in all, I’ve decided that I love playing with the soy wax, making designs and patterns but I hate cleaning the wax mess out of the fabrics. I need to do more research on the best way to do that and I obviously need to do more, more, more experimenting with waxing designs. It’s going to take quite a bit more thought than my usual slap-dash dyeing and I’m intrigued with the challenge!

Here’s a little cheer for dye days! Fun, learn, and happy happy!

Last Dye Day

Yesterday was my last planned dye day at my house. That doesn’t mean I won’t be doing any more. Just that I won’t be setting up my garage as an open studio.

Dye day photos are always pretty much the same, but I promised to always have my camera…and this time I played with soy wax resist and I learned quite a bit from my experiments.

I ordered these tjaps from Artistic Artifacts and couldn’t wait to try them out. The one on the left has lots of tiny, delicate little nooks and crannys and my respect for batik artists rose about 1000% after I tried this one.

This is a little hard to see, but all I ended up with was big blobs of wax. Tried letting most of the wax drip off before stamping, but then it cooled and did not penetrate the fabric. Tried multiple stamping with the same stamp and by the time I could see the delicate parts, the wax was off half of the other parts. I thought I’d try the less delicate stamp and see if that worked better!

You can see those lovely little leaves much better, but I did start out with some big blobs. The key for me was to let lots of the hot wax drip off before I tried to stamp. My friend Linda also suggested using a much shallower level of wax to start with and I think that might have made a huge difference with that first stamp, but did not go back to check it out.

I tried a stencil. It had quite a bit of fine detail, too, and the wax really seeped under it and blurred all the details. Less wax and cooler wax still seeped under and also did not penetrate the fabric. I did not adhere the stencil to the fabric, but I don’t think that would have made much of a difference, because the wax penetrates the fabric and that seepage would still have gone underneath. So next time I’ll try a less detailed stencil.

My favorite stamping tool has been far from the fine lines of these tjaps. It’s the bottom of a wire basket and makes a great grid pattern on the fabric.

I’ve used this before and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it. My quilting love started with geometric traditional patterns and I’m still drawn to strong lines in my fabric choices. And now I can make my own…quite a difference from tracing templates 40 years ago!

I’m going to go rinse out my fabrics and I’ll show you the ‘after’ in the next post…

I Love Dye Days!

I keep shouting out that I love, love, love dyeing and I really do. And now that I have a huge, good space, even on the hottest of days, I love to host dye days with all my friends. It seems to happen with uncanny coincidence that we DO end up working on the hottest day of the year, but it’s still all good!

Looks like the aftermath of a wild party, doesn’t it?

I get caught up with what I’m doing, though and don’t remember to take pictures…but I don’t have to wait forever to rinse these out so I can show you some of my finished products.

Some of my sheer “mystery fabric” that takes dye–it came out beautifully!

This is 3 layers of the sheers–still wet–but I hope to make something layered like this.

When we get together, it’s a group that varies from absolute beginner to could-be-professional. It’s actually a great mix, because when you have to explain something to a beginner, you are reminded of several things: precautions, equipment needs, why we do things a certain way, and also that all of us do things differently and that’s all right, too. The more experienced are always so generous with sharing their knowledge, and we all learn new things.

My style is pretty slapdash. I love to crumple, squish, jam and dump dye for unpredictable results. Some people want results they can repeat, so they take notes about each step and each drop of dye they use. One lady applies her dye a teaspoon at a time until she gets her colors spread all over her fabric. Another uses a squeeze bottle to paint on the dye in more controlled lines and patterns. It’s fun to hang fabric on a line or fence and drip dye on it. Spray bottles create great textured designs. We teach each other so much just by working in the same space.

Something that I have only tried once before is using soy wax resist. I waited until the “cool” of the evening (only 88°) and heated up the wax and applied it to my fabric. I used a sink mat, a sandwich cutter, a paintbrush, and a couple of lids to apply the patterns of wax. My hands got all covered in wax before I thought about my camera, so no process pics. I’m really airheaded when it comes to those pictures!  Anyway, it really makes a mess, but this is what I got.

The wax is still in here, so I don’t know what the final product will be.

This started out as the orange fire fabric from last week. It was a little too orangey-yellow for me, so I decided it would be the perfect candidate for this experiment. Can’t wait to see if looks significantly different after wax removal. Probably will not be able to do that today, but I’ll show you how it turns out when it’s ‘un-waxed.’

All in all, another great dye day. I’m thinking we need another one in August, when my busy-ness will back off a bit. In the meantime, I have no lack of projects and deadlines, so it’s time to get away from the computer and back to work!

The Results Are In…

Somehow I thought I had done more pieces than this, but I guess I was chatting a bit too much!

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Some vibrancy was lost after final rinsing and washing, but most of it will remain unaltered! I want to try a few things with next weeks dye day on a couple of them. I play with dyes, where some people play with paints. I’ve not been happy with paints, so I don’t play with them enough to get better at them. A vicious cycle of ignoring products and practice that could actually benefit my art! Maybe next time…

Who Loves to Dye?

I do…I do!!! Had a lovely day playing in the dye pots, chatting with my dye-crazy friends, pot-luck lunching and then the excruciatingly long wait time to see what we actually created.

This is all I had to look at at the end of the day and it just kills me to have to wait and let the dye actually process.

My favorite, on the top of a stack of containers!

And then, to add to the torture, I have to be away from home for 2 days before I can rinse out and get to the reward portion of the program! Good thing I’m going to be doing something I love while I’m gone.

And I’m hosting another dye day next week. Woo-hooo! My plan for that day is to explore some of the resists I’ve been studying up on. Can’t wait for that day, too!

All set up and ready for Dye Day 2!

Inspired by Another

Next week I will be hosting a dye day. Never know how many will show up, but we always have lots of fun. It has gotten me thinking about what I would like to dye and what I already have dyed that I’ve not used. You’ve seen lots of that on this blog after other dye days—I have a LOT!

Kay Sorensen has a blog  that I follow and she recently took an intense dyeing class with Jan Myers-Newberry. Just seeing what she is doing with some of that fabric is inspiring me to actually USE some of mine!

This piece has always been clamoring to be made into a light-filled cave under the sea.

Well, I’m not so much of a realistic designer so I started selecting and laying out fabrics directly inspired by Kay’s work. I hope she takes this as flattery and not an attempt to exploit her design skills!!!!

Here’s what I have after my work play session today.

Not really any thought yet as to construction method. I was concentrating on color. Of course I’m not completely satisfied–and there may be more from which to choose after the upcoming dye day. But, all in all, I feel like I’ve made a good start on a project using my own hand-dyed fabric.

And I re-discovered fabric that I had forgotten about. And some of the stuff I hated isn’t really that bad. And I may have to do a lot more of this, since I found another big piece that MUST be used. (Yes, it was shouting at me!) And…and…and…

I really love hand-dyed fabrics and I love dyeing them. Can’t wait to play in the dye pots again!

Screening…

More screen printing with thickened dyes today…results for me were very mixed. We had our usual over abundance of supplies, screens, stencils. Couldn’t have asked for anything more.

We screened and stenciled and just painted on the dyes.

And we all ended up with dye covered hands to show just how hard we worked and how much fun we had!

However, much of the dye from my fabrics did not take…just washed right out. I know that we used up some old dyes, so my guess is that that was most of the problem. I was impatient and did not leave the fabric to set as long as usual, but the dye I mixed fresh today worked fine. So, lesson learned…use up all your mixed dye quickly. Don’t try to use old stuff!

But it was fun…………..

New Tool for the Toolbox

Every time I learn a new technique, I feel like I’m getting a new tool for my little toolbox of knowledge. Of course it’s an elastic toolbox so it will never get full!

The Knot Even Quilters met at Linda’s house tonight to learn about  screen printing with thickened dyes. I’ve only been intermittently interested in learning screen printing so I went with no expectations or preconceived ideas. Linda thinks she was disorganized, but she really did us a favor. She did not have screens made so she set us to the task of assembling them. That was great because it gave us a greater appreciation of how much prep work needs to be done for the process. She had some thermofax screens from Lynn Krawczyk so we had a chance to work with pre-made designs and designing our own.

I actually remembered to bring my camera and got several pics of what we were doing and what we produced–and Kathy S. even managed to get a picture of me. See–I don’t just write about this stuff, I actually do it!

This was really fun!

See-I'm actually screen printing!

Linda led us through making freezer paper templates, to screening over string, multiple colors at once and to deconstructed printing with water soluble crayons. It was a very educational night but I believe I will be thinking and planning what I actually want to achieve before I do it again. This just seems like purposeful printing will be more productive for me than random-printing-and-hope-to-use-it-sometime. However, I now know where I can borrow screens!

Take a nice pictorial stroll through some of what what we produced. I didn’t get pictures of everything.

Water soluble crayons-deconstructed

Some of us are more subtle with tone-on-tone!

         

Great lesson, Linda!