Dye Workshop - Resists

Nine fantastic artists from Fyber Cafe, went to Vera's ranch for our annual dyeing workshop. Vera presented a structured class, working with different water soluble dye resists. She used us as Guinna pigs for a class she is teaching for Oregon SAQA. We used potato dextrin, corn dextrin, flour paste, sugar paste, soy wax, commercial water soluble resist, school glue, masking tape, and wet newspaper resist. We applied the resists with many different tools and techniques. The top pic is a flowery potato masher and masking tape. The next is a squiggly soda straw from the dollar store. We each made 8 or more fat quarters, on already pastel dyed PFD fabric.

They were laid out to batch after the first coat of dye was added. The gold one has a checker board stencil, and a plumbing connection used as a stamp.

Pink and purple were added to the resist treated fabric. After everything was coated with the resists, we had a lunch break, wonderful broccoli salad, peach cobbler, fresh salsa and chips, spice cake, quiche, melons, sandwiches and other vegie salads. Feeling like we needed naps, we got back to the workshop and started to coat everything with dyes. We used Procion MX Dye concentrates, with a thickening paste and painted each piece, many with multiple colors. They were left over night to batch the dyes and the next day we added layers of more resists, and more dye. I used mostly the potato dextrin the 2nd day, because it gave a nice crackle effect and the soy wax because it dried immediately, so I could add another layer, with out having to batch the dyes. All the fabric was wrapped in plastic to take home and batch, then rinsed and put in the washing machine with Synthrapol, then dried. We had so much fun, we scheduled another day next week to finish adding layers and make a few more pieces. So here are the finished pieces, they dried lighter than they looked when wet, all but two had multiple layers, the sugar was too sticky too work with even when dried, and the dextrins had to be ordered from Dharma Trading Co. click here

It was all so much fun, I hardly wanted to take time out for lunch. It is really wonderful to work with creative people, we each inspired the others to try new things. When we were cleaning up and packing things in the cars, I spotted a rattle snake, heading under the cars, we chased it away and ended up trapping it in a hole. So we got an extra kick of excitement to the workshop.
I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click on the badge in the right hand column to see what other wonderful artists are up to this week.