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.

Overdyeing

Last week I used some of my previously dyed light fabrics and tried overdyeing them bit darker with shibori and triangle folding techniques.

I wrapped fat quarter fabrics around 3" diameter PCV pipe. I wrapped the twine around the fabrics and scrunched the fabric up the pole. I then added a darker dye over the fabric and cured in plastic sheeting for 4 hours. Removed the twine and rinsed.

Light green overdyed with a darker green.

Light red overdyed with a red/green mix.

Yellow/orange overdyed with red/violet.

Clear light blue/green overdyed with a darker blue/green.

I also folded fabrics using different techniques into triangles then dipped the edges into darker dyes, placed into plastic baggies and let cure for 4 hours.

The first 2 fabrics had previously been soda soaked and dried.

Light red with medium red overdyed on edges.

Light green with medium green overdyed on edges.

As you can see, the darker dyes took over and just left splotches of the lighter color. Being dry fabric, the dyes wicked up more than should have.

These next ones were folded into various triangles, soda soaked for about 30 minutes, then the edges were dipped into darker dyes.
Light blue/green overdyed with medium blue/green.

Muted light yellow/green overdyed with a muted medium yellow/green.

Light blue/violet overdyed with a medium dark blue/violet.

Light yellow/green overdyed with a medium yellow/green.

These came out much better, the dyes didn't wick up as much and gave a better pattern to the fabrics.

I love the shibori look and will probably do more of it. I had tried the folded triangles years ago putting different colors on each edge and didn't like the results. Going more simplistic and overdyeing lighter fabrics with darker dyes in the same color family makes the fabric more interesting without being overwhelming.

This past Labor Day weekend was a dyeing frenzy. I'm still processing the fabrics and will post as soon as am done.

See you soon.

More Deconstructed Screen Printing

I brought out the screens to try DSP again. I made up a couple of screens and let them dry, while waiting I decided to use stencils on the back of another screen to print previously dyed fabrics.



Using the screen of the of the swirly stencil, I let that dry also for DSP. Remembering to stop printing before the whole design was wasted from the screen, I started to print. I used rubber bands, crinkled saran wrap and sequin waste.

This screen was bubble wrap and hair clips.

This one I used black dye in an extruder and drew flowers and leaves.

The end of the flowers and the stencil screen.

These turned out better than my first try, but I still need more imagination in layering items under the screens.

A couple of days later I dyed gradations of yellow/orange, blue/green, and blue/violet. I used different sets of dye mixtures to get clear colors and muted colors. (Used Linda Johansen's book "Fabric Dyer's Dictionary"). This book is a great resource for dye recipes that can be duplicated with same results every time.

The first set of fabrics are yellow/oranges. On the left is clear using lemon yellow and fushia, on the right is muted using golden yellow and chinese red.

The second set of fabrics are blue/green. On the left is clear using turquoise and lemon yellow, on the right is muted using cobalt blue and golden yellow.

The last set of fabrics is blue/violets. On the left is clear using turquoise and fushia, on the right is muted using cobalt blue and chinese red.

I got a good range of values of clear and muted colors. I have a tendency to lean towards the muted colors, but know that the clear values will come in handy.

The last fabric was a fabric I pre-soaked in soda ash water, laid it out on a plastic covered foam board and squirted muted blue/green and muted yellow/orange dye onto the fabric and let dry in the sun. This will be a great fabric to tie into a triatic color scheme of blue/green, yellow/orange, and red/violet.

My next project is to overdye some of these fabrics.

Come back to see how they come out.

Deconstructed Screen Printing

I've been dyeing fabric the past couple weeks but haven't had the chance to take pictures or blog about it till now.

I started off by cleaning the garage and giving myself some space to do wet work. It's not the ideal studio but it sure beats working outside in the hot sun. Hopefully, soon, my brother will install a sink for me.

When my space was set up I got to work. I've wanted to try Deconstructed Screen Printing (DSP) since I got Kerr Grabowski's video. My attempts are very simplistic, but hey, you got to start somewhere.

As I was screening, I realized that I should have stopped with each screen much sooner than I did. My dyes on the screens didn't last anywhere near as long as Kerr's did.

I then used a window from an old screen door (it's amazing the things you find when you clean) to do monoprinting. Using up some of the leftover thickened dyes, I spread some across the window then used a notched scraper and made quarter circles with it. This was later overdyed with a yellow/orange dye mix.

The second one I used my fingers to make the design. This still needs to be overdyed but here's the picture.

All of these were cured overnight in plastic sheeting.

A few days later I did some low-water immersion dyeing using a couple recipes from the blog Fabric Dyeing 101 (www.fabricdyeing101.blogspot.com). If you haven't been to this website its worth the look. I used some white with black fabrics for added interest.

I started with "Rainbow Light" series using scarlet, lemon yellow and sky blue. Most of them came out how you'd expect except the top 3. Really loved those colors.

I also tried "Rainbox Jewels", using salmon, teal, and violet. Some came out muted and muddy looking but I'm sure they'll get used.

I had a little dye left over so I did 3 layers of fat quarters: Layer 1 teal, Layer 2 salmon, Layer 3 violet. I smooshed them down too much so the colors blended far more than they should have, but I really like them.

The last set was called "Forest Floor Neutrals" using scarlet, sky blue, and lemon yellow. From the website picture they looked like some greens and 2 browns. Not what I got.

These are a great variety of browns. I'm glad they didn't turn out correctly.

A lot of rinsing took place from these sessions, (the part I dislike the most) but well worth it.

To be continued............

Food Fight

I came up with this idea from the name of a TV show"Food Wars". I overlapped the drawings onto a piece of white cotton. Using a water soluble resist I outlined components, let dry, painted these sections with Seta color paint, heat-set and washed out the resist. This process was done numerous times. I continued till I got the effect I wanted. Then I used a light wash of Fabrico Craft Ink over the background.

Now, the scary part, cutting it apart into smaller sections. I say scary because the painting took so long. I cut it into grids, then began rearranging the units for disorganization. When I was happy with the "arrangement" I transferred the pieces to backing and batting. Using invisible thread, I zigzagged each piece to the other.

Then I outline quilted all the elements and added details. When the quilting was finished I sewed an irregular zigzag stitch with variegated thread to reinforce the pieces and add texture.

The edge finishing was zigzag stitched to close all 3 layers together.

After I finished I thought of several different methods I could have used to make the process easier and quicker. I really need to think through the whole quilt process before starting.

Dyeing Results

I finally rinsed, washed, dried, and pressed the fabrics I dyed last week. All the heat from last week kept me at a slower pace. Most all the fabric I was very pleased with, some not as much.

The screen print and one of the monoprinting I really liked. The overdyed colors are very light which as what I was aiming for.

The colors don't photograph well because of the lightness. I did learn though when printing with black I need a more concentrated dye solution for it to come out black and not a very dark gray.The combed through monoprinting that was overdyed with red/orange and red/violet came out darker than what I hoped for. This will probably be used cut up.
The two fabrics that were dyed upright on foam core turned out okay, but I dyed them on dry soda soaked fabric. I think there would have been more blending if they were wet.

The tray fabric that caught the run-off drips came out very interesting and could be used in many different ways.

The fabric with blue stamps and overdyed yellow, bronze and chino could have been blended more but since the fabric was still damp when I did it, I didn't want a lot of mixing with the blue. Allthough I did like the added green elements inside of circles and ovals.
Next time I'll start with dry fabric and then wait till the stamp prints are dry before dyeing over it.

The 3-layered fabrics came out great. They speak for themselves.

The cup dyeing of oranges and grays came out just as I expected, some mottling and dark to light. The nickel and pewter ranges turned out great.

The oranges were stronger than expected, was going for some corals and salmons, but they are beautiful.

All said and done I was pleased with my work and experiments. The heat is still oppressive so I'll work in my studio till it cools a little.

Martha is done with all her rinsing, etc. also. Go to http://marthahallart.com/blog to see her results.