Not Just A Picture Of A Cat...

honest, it isn't, though if Mollie could talk, she would be saying that it may be batting to me, but to her it's a remarkably soft and fluffy bed...sigh.  But, cute as she is, she isn't the reason for the image. That honour goes to the unfinished red piece that is lying in front of her.  It is one of the 'Linescapes' pieces, and, as you can see, it is far from finished.  What's interesting about the cloth, is that it has printed marks dyed onto it.  

One of the things you learn, when you are dyeing, is that transfer/disperse dyes only work on polyester.  Nope, sorry, that's just not true; the red of the cloth in this piece has been dyed using Procion MX, as you might expect, but the printed squares have been dyed using transfer dyes.

So, why did I do it?  Well, it comes down to the effect I was trying to achieve.  I wanted marks that were noticeable, but not overly strong, a sort of faded look.  I could have fiddled around with thickened procions, but I would have had to have worked quite hard to get the sort of effect that the transfer dyes have produced here.  There are marks, but they are pale and fairly random, just the effect I wanted.  

The paler strip down one side is painted Bondaweb; you can just see some of the marks on here, though in fact the cloth is covered fairly well with these little square marks, some of which are very pale indeed.

Rules by themselves, like the rule that says, only use transfer dyes on polyester, are useful things... providing you know WHY they are rules (in this case, because the results are not anything like as good as they would have been on polyester cloth).  Nine times out of ten, I will observe that 'rule'; but every time I want something indistinct and interesting, I will break it.  At the end of the day, it comes down to knowing your materials, and using the right material for the right job.