Getting Technical, or The Art Of Dyeing.

I said I would revisit some of the dyeing terms I used yesterday.  If you haven't tried dyeing before, you might be thinking of the immersion style of dyeing, when you put dye into a lot of water, and then stick your fabric in, swish it around regularly and hey presto!  the fabric is another colour.  That works really well for single colours, but what if you want to have more than one colour in a cloth?  Clearly, pouring three colours into a bucket of water is going to produce...well... mud, probably.  A grey, or a brown.  You have no way of keeping the colours separate.  And of that desire, low immersion was born.  You use a lot less water, and introduce the colours carefully to the cloth, so that you get the kind of results that you saw yesterday, and in the cloth pictured above.  I'd like to say that there's a lot more to it than that, but, other than getting the chemistry right (ie, adding the soda ash at the right time), that's really all there is to it.  The dye travels around the cloth, mixing as it choses, with a little white cloth left in places where the dye hasn't quite managed to reach.

Taking low immersion cloth out of the container it has been dyed in is always thrilling.  You never really know what you have created, until it is out of there, rinsed and washed.  You do get some wonderful surprises, and the occasional shock.  The good thing, though, is that no matter how unhappy you are with a piece of cloth, you can always overdye it to create something you are happier with.  It is a very forgiving medium.

But what if you want to make patterns in your dyed cloth?  There are lots of ways of doing that, of course, but the one I mentioned yesterday is discharge dyeing.  That involves taking a piece of dyed cloth and removing dye from it, usually with bleach.  You then neutralise the bleach and admire the results.  The images here are of brown cotton sateen cloth that has been discharge dyed using bleach.  I wanted to have a really organic, natural look, so the marks are fairly random.  In the piece, the result is really impressive; however, cloth like this is always really interesting cut into strips and then reassembled. Think of the look of a traditional block using fabric like this... really unusual.

So there you are, yesterday's technical terms, explained.  Any questions?

Changing My Mind...

 

is, of course, something I do on  a regular basis.  Now that I'm beginning to recover properly from the gall bladder surgery that knocked me sideways earlier on this year, I'm starting to review what I want to be making.  And to my eternal surprise, that includes at least one traditional quilt.  A very simple four patch, in gentle, pastel colours.  With flowers.  Hmm.  Not a style usually associated for me.  And this quilt is for me...to sit on my sofa, so I can wrap myself in it whenever I please.  It'll be called Comfort And Joy; named even although it isn't an art quilt.

Those of you who live nearby know that it was my intention to sell my commercial fabric.  Since most of my work is around manipulated photographs at present, I  figured that this was a good idea...it's only taking up room.  I looked through it this morning, and discovered that...well...I just can't do it.  It's lovely fabric.  It's my fabric.  And I can imagine using it, too.  I can even imagine teaching a scrap quilt class...  'Perfect Squares'... just exploring what can be done with this most flexible of shapes.  Fun, I think...

No, I don't know what's come over me, either.  But hey.  Change is a good thing.  And I'm ready for it.  The image is one I'll be working with soon, probably on Evolon.  It looks as if it wants to be very tactile, perhaps with beads...  hurrah.  

Creating...

but not exactly what I expected. I'm spending today in the gallery, and now that I've got the exhibit how I want it, complete with labels, I'm working on... well...not what I intended to work on. I intended to work on the image above, a piece of Evolon that has been transfer dyed in four layers (or was it five...I forget). But somehow the little box with the correct foot for my old Bernina (which lives here part time) has disappeared in the chaos which is the Gallery's art supplies, so instead, I'm writing some instructions for a pattern. I rarely make pieces that lend themselves to patterns, or instructions, and in truth, this will be a pattern with a difference. It will tell you how to make a particular wall hanging...but it will also give you lots of control over the size and look of the piece, too. Mind you, I've never actually used a pattern, so maybe that's what all patterns do? If so, better tell me now before I make an idiot of myself...

The piece I'm writing the pattern for is called 'Autumn Rain'. I originally made it with hand dyes, but I am writing the pattern for commercial fabrics as well as hand dyes...so we'll see how that works today. I'll pop a picture of it up on the next blog, along with some images of the show.