Decolorant Experiments

I decided to try decolorant ( a type of discharge paste) again.  I used it during the summer but with little success.  Can't just discard it with only one try, so I pulled out dark hand-dyed fabrics and some stencils and tried again.

These worked very well.  The fabric didn't discharge to white, but that wasn't whaat I wanted anyway.

The discharge was to a much lighter tint of the original fabric, on the red/violet, brown, blue/violet and medium green, the olive green discharged to a golden brown, interesting.  The red, orange, and fushia to a creamy color.  I could have kept ironing the paste fabric but I found that the paste spread out and haloed after about 90 seconds.

The next set didn't come out as clearly, all but the yellow probably could have been ironed longer, the yellow just wasn't dark enough.

I'm not sure what more I'll do to them, probably some paint sketching or threadwork on the discharge areas. 

I also tried decolorant plus.  This is discharge with paint added to it.  Needless to say, it comes in quite a few colors.  I started off trying a three pack of orange, lime green, and purple.  Then while I was at Quiltfest of NJ last week I bought 2 more 3 packs - persimmon, brown and autumn yellow and orange ice, robins egg blue and carnation.  I would have liked to get the primaries - red, yellow, and blue, but they were out - another time. 

Mostly they came out well.  I used stencils again.  It takes the color out and leaves the paint on top.  I do have to watch out what colors I use on the fabric so that there is a good contrast, otherwise it doesn't show up very well.

These are some that didn't work out so well, my color choices on the red fabric weren't all clear, I shouldn't have used orange and brown, they just don't show up very well.  The yellow fabric with sunflowers just look like I painted them.  The bottom fabric is a commercial batik that I used the white decolorant on, I'm undecided on how that turned out.

All in all I'm happy with the outcome.  Now I have to think about how to use the blocks in a quilt or quilts.  Ideas are starting to formulate in my mind.

Fantasy Forest Part II

The top is finished, now comes the quilting.  This is always the hardest part for me.  The decisions for quilt designs are overwhelming and as I look at the quilt, I freeze.

I'm trying a wool batting.  I never used this before but have heard good things.  I started in the center and outlined all the "trees" and their shadows and put in branches.  The I quilted in some deciduous trees, then stippled the background.

Moving out to the border I outlined and branched the leaf blocks with a matching thread then echo quilted to the edges.





That was the obvious way to go with the quilting.  I put the quilt back on the design wall and stared at it for days trying to decide how to do the alternating blocks and corner squares.  I thought about using the leaf designs and doing the same thing as the sunprint blocks, but that seemed to be overdoing it.  I finally came up with the idea of doing different background designs: teardrops, fans, wood grain, water.  The brain freeze defrosted! These designs felt right and as I quilted, they fell into place and gave the border more texture and interest.

The corner blocks were done in E's and W's.



Below is the final result with a narrow binding of dark green attached.

I guess now that I'm done I should get back to straightening and cleaning.  NOT!!!

Fantasy Forest Part 1

During the summer I sun-printed a leaf forest using different hues of browns and brownish greens. Wasn't sure how I was going to use it at the time, but thought that it came out interesting.

Later in the fall, I sun-printed some 11" blocks with same or similar leaves but used bright hues of yellow/orange, yellow/green, red, green, red/violet, and purple.  Wasn't sure how I would use these either.

As I was reshuffling fabrics and cleaning my studio at the end of the year, I came across the sunprints and stuck them up on the design wall.  Ideas started jumping in my head, so needless to say the cleaning was forgotten.  I went through more of my stash and pulled out brown and green fabrics that would go with the background colors of my "forest".  To blend in the squares of sun prints I looked for a multicolored fabric. 

I added a small sashing around the "forest" with the multicolor, then started arranging the square sunprints around for borders.  The spaces in between them were filled with the brown and green batiks.  This left the corners open and a decision on how to work them.  I tried a simple square patch design with the batiks and multicolored fabric.  This looked good, and carried the colors around the border.

I started thinking about the quilting, but the center wasn't giving the feel of a forest.  So I traced the leaves and made stencils.  Using a black Shiva paintstick, I made shadow trees to give more depth.  After finishing this I stood back and could now see a forest.

Quilting decisions need to be made.  Come back for the results.