Discharge Monday

Monday was discharge day. Discharge with bleach. I used several blacks manufactured by different companies, my hand dyed fabric and commercial batiks. I wanted to see if there were any differences with the blacks and how the batiks and hand dyes would bleach out. I also used bleach thickener on some.

Below are some of my samples.

The top fabric was shiboried with a 50% bleach and 50% water solution on a Robert Kaufman black fabric. The bottom was taped with pieces of masking tape and sprayed with the 50/50 bleach solution using Timeless Treasures black fabric, this came out a peachy/cream color that I really like.

The left fabric was a hand dyed fabric that started out a very dark blue/green. I used a cut-out of a tree branch from a stencil I carved for another project and sprayed 50/50 bleach, water solution. The results really surprised me. The right was a hand dyed fabric that started as a red/violet. I used 2 TBS bleach thickener and 1/4 c of bleach and 1/8 c water, and sponged with a couple different pieces of foam sponges.

The left fabric was twisted in a swirl and squirted 50/50 bleach and water solution in the folds. This was an unknown black batik. The right was a Gee's Bend dark red solid that I shiboried with a 50/50 bleach solution. Another real favorite.

The left was a hand dyed fabric I squirted with yellow and blue dyes and swished around. I used a purchased stencil on it with thickened bleach. The right was a blue/green hand dyed fabric that I used a Clorox bleach pen on for water ripples.

These are commercial batiks that I used purchased stencils with bleach thickener.

After the fabrics bleached to the colors I wanted I rinsed in water, then put in Anti-Chlor solution for about 15 minutes, rinsed again and then machine washed and ironed.

I had a great time experimenting with this process and will do again later this summer.

Fluttering Leaves Continued

I started the quilting on my sun printed leaves quilt. I outlined around each stem and leaf, then continued outline quilting each section.

I then embroidered a stem stitch for the veins in each leaf with hand dyed silk embroidery floss.

I finished the edges with a thin binding using one of the stem fabrics.

Fluttering Leaves

I did some sun printing with seta color paints last summer, and have finally started working with one of the fabrics.

I mixed varying shades of oranges and painted them on a fat quarter of fabric. I then layed down various sizes of maple leaves and the little helicopter seed pods, let dry in the sun then removed the leaves and pods.

I then hand-dyed fabrics with numerous blue/orange combinations to make stems. These I fused and zigzag applique.

I outlined each leaf with Fabrico markers to give more definition to the leaves.

Come back to check out the quilting and finishing touches.

Irises in a Vase

I used the same method for the Irises as with the previous herb quilts, (stencil, Walnut Ink spray, and painting the flowers). I cut out the background fabric to showcase the irises in a vase. The doily under the vase was a sun printed fabric using a paper doily. The vase is sitting on a table. I appliqued around the vase with a decorative circle stitch to give it a cut glass effect. The doily was satin stitched in white thread.

I added the green borders around three sides and the bottom border out of a sun printed fabric using construction fencing.

Various quilting designs were used and the quilt was finished with a facing.

Finished Flying Triangles

The last few days have been spent on deciding the quilting for Flying Triangles. I did some curves around the triangles in gradated values of orange threads. Next I quilted some straight lines inside the curve center and on the left edge with blue variegated thread.

I used facing for the edge finishing. Lines of buttons made from shrink film completed this quilt.

Flying Triangles

I started by hand-dyeing fabric in a 12 step gradation of navy dye. From them I used the darkest, medium and the last 4 lightest fabrics.



I wanted a little more interest for the dark and medium fabrics, which would be used for the background. I did leaf rubbings randomly around using a slate blue Shiva paintstick.


After letting the paint cure, I heatset the fabric.

Playing around with the lightest blue fabrics, I cut strips in varying widths and lengths and fused them to the background.

I then made varying sizes of triangles from a fabric by Caryl Bryer Fallert of orange values. I wanted the triangles to curve and show distance. This took many reconfigurations to get the effect I was looking for.
Quilting is my next step. I have a few ideas, but need to develop them further. Finished quilt will be in a future blog.

Catching Up

I'm finally getting around to finishing up some quilts started over the summer.

This was started using a stencil and Walnut Ink, shown earlier in my blog. I added a curved frame, using reverse applique, and the border fabric was sun-printed using blades of grass and clover. Spelling out Basil and outlining blocks with beads added something extra.

This also was started using a stencil and Walnut Ink. I didn't like the effect it gave on the blue fabric, so decided to use the butterfly as an applique. The background is a hand-dye fabric where the dyes were swished around to mix with each other. This fabric was then reverse appliqued to yellow hand-dye fabric for the sun. The branch was fused and then appliqued.

Have more in the series that are a work in progress. Please come back to see them.