Resist Dyeing - Day 3

Finally, a few moments to get on the computer. With school starting up, it has been a very busy week. I drive school bus, which gives me a lot of time in my week to quilt, as I drive a split shift, morning and afternoon. Four hours off, in the middle of the day is a wonderful luxury, but makes for a LONG day. Of coarse the kids were so excited, in all their new clothes and shoes with fluorescent shoelaces. I have a set of kindergarten twin girls this year, so cute!! And then nature hit us with a 100 degree day on Friday, whew! HOT!! The Pacific North West is not really used to that weather. So getting an extra day to dye fabric last week was a wonderful opportunity to play, before going back to work.

Another day of resist dyeing, was scheduled so we could finish up some of our pieces, with extra layers, and if we had time to make a few additional fat quarters. This was made with sugar syrup in a squeeze bottle with multiple tines on it, they are used for dyeing hair. I wish I had used it more, I love the technique, to make multiple lines and curves. You get a similar result with a comb pick dragged through paint on a Gelli print. I knew it would only get one layer of resist, so I used many colors of dye on it.

I made this green bubbles piece, with soy wax resist. I used many different circle makers, lids, tubes, and cookie cutters. The first layer was a bright green dye, then more wax to preserve the colored circles, then over dyed with a dark forest green.

Green grids, was also only one layer of resist and dye. I used soy wax with a piece of metal grid to make the resist print.

A last minute quickie done in soy wax. The print is a sandwich cutter, that removes the crust and cuts on the diagonal. It made a very interesting overlapping print. I also used the squiggly straw from the dollar store.

This one is interesting, I used potato dextrin to print with a sponge, that had a rectangular pattern cut out of it. The sponge left a grainy print. So there is lots of texture to this one. I colored in the sections, with different dyes, then added more resist, and a dark navy blue final dye. This did not go as planned, do they ever? But I really like the darker area, but all the color is very blotchy. It's an experiment anyway, just playing around.

I began with a piece of plastic construction fence, to block of squares on a pale yellow piece of fabric. Then orange dye and more soy wax resist. The hot pink and magenta was last, brushed on with a foam brush in squarish shapes. This one really glows when up to the light. I am trying to think of how to preserve that effect, when I make something out of it.

Multiple layers of soy wax over a pale yellow fabric. Then orange dye, and more wax and then a dark rust over dyed. The design of coarse is a wire potato masher, in different directions and a second stamping for a lighter application of wax.

A pic of the colored bubbles with the first dye applied, then it was coated with more soy wax to preserve the color in the bubbles. The dark navy blue dye only covered the space between the bubbles. This is my favorite piece!! So colorful! I made this after seeing Meredith's multi colored piece. We had another great day of dyeing, it was worth it to go back, and apply additional layers to some of the fabric we had already dyed last week.

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.