Showing posts with label 3 layer parfait. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 3 layer parfait. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Dyeing Again

The past few days I've been discharging, overdyeing and doing 3 layer parfaits. 
I started with previously dyed fabrics for discharging.  I started with decolorant and stenciled a few fabrics.  After they dried I steamed the fabric to activate the decolorant.  I was not very satisfied with the results. 

I had expected a much clearer design result.  It could have been that I didn't use enough, but felt if I used more, it would have leaked under the stencil and given a blurred image.  I'll have to try again using a different approach. 

I went back to my usual discharging of using soft scrub wigth stencils, thermofax screens and circles with a bleach pen.  The soft scrub reacts fast, then rinse and soak in anti-chlor to stop the bleach reaction.  I never know what the discharge coloring will be, but thats part of the excitement. 
My plan after discharging was to overdye the fabrics with thickened dyes and the same stencils.  I mixed the thickener with diluted dyes for the colors I wanted.  Some were dark enough to work, others weren't and didn't show up.  Lesson 1 - learned that I should have used straight dye solution with the thickener to make it more concentrated.
Below are ones that did turn out good.  A couple I overdyed several times with different colors.



I also fold dyed fabric using different folding methods , then dipped the edges into the dyes.  Lesson 2- don't squeeze out excess dye.  this spreads the dye too much and end up with mushy designs.




Towards the end I didn't squeeze the fabric and got clearer results. 

The last day I used up extra dye and made a couple sets of 3 layer parfaits.  On the right I started with first layer of orange/brown mix, layer 2-dark red, layer 3- brown.  Each layer absorbed some of the next color layer and worked out good.   On the lef,t I started with green, layer 2-navy, and layer 3-purple.  The colors were too closely related and color mixes didn't come out as clearly.



The next ones I used half yard pieces instead of fat quarters.  Left side I started with yellow/green, layer 2- dark green, and layer 3-brown.  the colors flowed nicely through all layers.  The right side layer 1-red/violet, layer 2-purple, and layer 3-gray.  These 3 fabrics basically kept that layers color.


I was happy with most of my work and fabrics that didn't turn out I decided to paint instead.  It was a productive few days and am now waiting for some sunny days with little humidity to try flour paste resist.



Tuesday, March 29, 2011

It Snowed, So I Snow-dyed

Last Monday morning I woke to snow-----so instead of working on a quilt (anything not to work on that quilt) I did some snow-dyeing. There wasn't that much snow and it was melting fast. I soda soaked a couple of yards of fabric, mixed dyes and scraped snow off the driveway. I used a combo of red/violet and yellow/orange. The second piece I used blue/violet and yellow/green. I set these to the side to melt and do their thing. When I looked outside the snow had stopped and was quickly melting (faster than it was on my fabric). Tuesday after my guild meeting I rinsed the fabrics.
My dh came out to the garage and advised me that it was to snow again Wednesday, so instead of washing my fabrics I let them air dry and got more fabric ready for the snow.


I woke Wednesday to more snow than Monday so I decided to dye 4 more pieces.

Orange and green
Orange and blue/green

Orange and blue/violet

Red/orange and yellow/green


I had a little dye left over (can't let it go to waste) so I did a 3 layer parfait.

Left side is Layer 1 - orange, middle is Layer 2 - fushia with a little blue, right side is Layer 3 - blue. These are dark saturated colors.

I enjoyed my 2 days of snow-dyeing, but lets face it -------


I'M SICK OF WINTER!!!!


Now back to the quilt.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Finishing Up

The snow-dyeing fabrics are finally rinsed and pressed, (that's what took me so long). I loved how the green and red turned out and will be quickly used in a quilt I'm starting.

The blue and yellow came out good but would have liked more mixing of green.

The 3 layer parfaits are great. The first two layers came out with mixture of colors and the third layer was the combo of red and blue, not a wow!! fabric but will be useful.
Its much easier doing the parfait layers with low-water immersion and I think thats how I'll continue to do them.
I have also been busy quilting. I finished a few quilts that have been sitting around waiting to be quilted.
This started out with monoprinting on a gelatin mold 2 summers ago. Added some turquoise hand-dyes and 1/2 square triangles.

Next is a sunprint of assorted leaves. I added bias stems to separate the leaves, then traced the leaves for applique. I offset the applique leaves on the sunprinted fabric to create dimension.


Tomorrow I have to get started quilting a baby quilt for my grand niece. She's due to be born any day now. Will show pictures when finished.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Labor Day Dyeing Spree

Summer is coming to an end and time for dyeing (even in my garage) will soon come to a halt.
So with this in mind I set myself up for a dyeing frenzy.

I started Friday with my friend Martha. Got some of the dyes and fabric ready and went to her wet studio for the first day. Go to her web site for her work. http://www.marthahallart.com/. I kept it pretty simple by dyeing a range of greens with black dyes.
I also dyed a few stray pieces that I have previously done but ran out of and now need.

Saturday was a family picnic, so I started rinsing Fridays fabrics in the morning.

Sunday, I started by stenciling previously dyed fabrics with thickened dye. Some of these were previously discharged with soft scrub. I covered the fabrics with plastic and let them cure for 24 hours. I was moving right along.





Next I wanted to try "Tray Dyeing" by Leslie Morgan & Claire Benn. I soda soaked fabric for 30 minutes then fan folded the fabric into a large bin. Mixing up my colors I squirted gold in the center making sure it saturated the fabric, squirted blue on the edges of the gold and massaged the dye into some of the gold. Last I added red to the edges and again massaged the dye into the blue, I tilted the tray so some of the red dye went down under the folds.
I let this cure for 24 hours before rinsing. I did a second fabric using orange, green and ultra violet dyes.
I went on to do 3 layer parfaits. The first set I used yellow/orange, on the first layer, red/violet on the second layer, and blue/green on the third.

The second set was yellow/green first layer, blue/violet second layer, and red/orange third layer.
I mixed up more dye for Monday and called it quits for the day.
Monday, I started with some gradation dyeing of chinese red and black, moved on to red/oranges with black.

Any left over dyes I used for more 3 layer parfaits.
After all the fabrics had set for their alotted times I finished off the day rinsing, rinsing, and more rinsing.
Some of the results:
Red gradations
Tray dyeing




3 layer parfaits



It was a busy weekend but enjoyable and productive.
See you soon.