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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

In Case You Were Wondering...





...just what it is I'm going to be demonstrating at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Harrogate this weekend, I thought I'd give you a sneak preview. I'm going to be working mostly with transfer dyes, though I suspect that some of Colour Craft's other watercolour and acrylic paints might well sneak in there, too. I'll be working with transfer paints, but I've prepared some background colours using the powdered dyes. I'm much more likely to spill those, so I reckoned that doing that preparation work in the shed was probably a good move!

As you probably know, when you use transfer dyes, you first paint them onto paper, and then 'transfer' the colour from the paper onto the cloth, using a very hot iron (detailed instructions, of course, in the Lovely Lutradur book) (end of plug!). If you haven't done that before, you might not appreciate the incredible transformation that heat brings about to the dyes painted on the paper. So I brought one in from the shed to show you how it works. The first image shown is the dye on the paper; the colours are dark, almost greyish. That is completely changed in the next two images, both taken off that specific piece of paper. The colours are much brighter, and they show up beautifully, first on Lutradur, then on Evolon. I think that's part of the reason I love working with transfer dyes; you get such a lovely surprise when you transfer an image for the first time.

I say surprise, advisedly; if you work as I do, wet on wet, the dyes mix and mingle, so I can never be sure quite what the end result will be. I love that about dyeing in general, and this process in particular. And as you can see, not content with ironing my way through Festival of Quilts, this time, I'm going to iron my way through two days of the Knitting and Stitching Show. Most people go to these things to get away from the ironing!

7 comments:

Julie said...

I'm coming up to Harrogate on Saturday so I'll pop by and say Hello. You'll probably be just as busy as you were at the FOQ :o) You can certainly see the difference in the effect of the transfer dyes between the lutradur and the evolon.

rose AKA Walk in the Woods - she/her said...

Very cool process! I'll bet they're gorgeous!

rose AKA Walk in the Woods - she/her said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Hey there!

I'm kinda dropping by randomly (& kinda dropping by to hit you with my EC) to tell you about this new selling site I found. It's called ArtFire.com & you should check it out.

It's still really, really new (still in beta) but it's heading in a really good direction! They are already buying advertising online & in print magazines to bring in traffic to the site. (It's already got almost as much traffic as indiepublic.com)

It's got stats for shop views so you know where your customers are coming from! I know! Gasp! Faint! Right? hehe

& it's just $7 a month (for the first 5000 artists) to list & sell as much as you can FOREVER. $7 a month no matter what! I signed up on that alone! haha

Anyhoo, it is new so there aren't zillions of people using it (which is good & bad) but I thought you might want to take a look at it. With the ad campaign they are working on kicking in soon (or so they are saying), I think it's going to be a good place to start listing!

If you sign up, give me a yell & let me know what you think!

Always,
Amy

Leslie said...

Hey, Ms Marian

So wish I vould get to Harrowgate. I like what you are doing artwise by the way.

MaryAnn said...

I got my book in the mail yesterday! I can't wait to spend the weekend experimenting!

Anonymous said...

And color is anti-depressant- not wonder you love it!!