Inspired by the enormously talented Morwenna Catt and her wonderful quirky stoles, I felt compelled to make something similar…
I have all this fabric and trimmings and whatnot, sitting around waiting to be purposed. And what better purpose than a mad turquoise friend.
I was aiming for a cat shaped face, but looks a little more doggish to me. Maybe some ear adjustment and whiskers will bring it round. Either way, I’m kinda fond of this new addition to the family.
a little while ago I might have mentioned I was invited to participate in a local exhibition. Well, today I delivered my things to the gallery, and this evening I spotted one of my pics on their website. Wowzers! This is seeming quite real now! But more wowzing yet to come: I checked out the gallery’s facebook page & whaduknow, my pic is their cover pic!
Happy gal! 🙂
Some little while ago I got all buzzed up about an idea to do some batik. A trawl through the web came up with Dylon Easy Batik and as I couldn’t resist (HA! geddit!!) giving it a go.
I have to say firstly, it is a lot of fun.
With the consistency of cream (shake well – I forgot one time and it does separate unshaken), it paints on nicely. I was using cotton sheeting, and found it absorbed and spread, so even the finest lines came out a bit chunky. In that sense it’s limited in comparison to real batik, but something to build into the design I guess. The other main difference is that unlike batik wax it is flexible when it’s dry, so none of that lovely crackle effect. But other fabrics need testing on!
First easy batik doodles!
This is the underside of a freshly dye-painted sample. The eagle eyed amongst you might notice the batik-stuff appears speckled. It isn’t. This only happens if you use a fluffy-with-velvet-trimming-fuzz-covered surface to paint on. Oops. No matter, it all comes out in the wash.
Now that leads me on to another thing. If one were to follow the instructions one would paint on the stuff and allow to dry, pref overnight, then iron to fix (did all that), then to place the fabric flat in the dye for 30 mins (longer and the resist loses resistance), not aggitating it for fear of loosening the stuff from the fibres.
If, on the other hand, one is me, one might choose to go off recipe at the point after the ironing…
I had planned to paint and drip procion dyes, swish with water, get a nice watercolory-effect then fix with soda ash per dying instructions on the bottle. Building up by layers, some more batik-stuff, more drying-ironing-inking cycle, etc…
But, surrounded as I was by so many delicious colored inks (not fixable), I ended up using a mix of procion dye (unfixed, didn’t bother since all the other ingredients became involved), ink, dylusions spray, coffee, tea…
It was a giddy whirl of color, it was really out of my control altogether. i just decided these samples would be ingredients for non-washable creations. Simple as!
But sometimes, just knowing something won’t work is not reason enough not to give it a try. After all that ironing a certain amount of fixing must have happened. Plus I knew full well if I’d been wearing white when I did this, no amount of laundering would have got the splashes out! So I *washed some edge snippings to see what happened… just how much color loss and more importantly, washability of the stuff
Surprised by the results – less color loss than I expected, and total stuff removal (speckles n all!)
*washing: hand washed in cool water, no detergent, just til the water ran clear.
I’ve been dying fabric for the quilt lately. I’ve been dying fabric for years. It got me thinking: The only stage I don’t like is towards the end when the residue dye – as it’s no longer active – has to be poured away. Why? it’s mostly water. But something inside me winces, it’s beautifully colored water and I don’t want to waste a drop of color.
In my perpetual quest for ways to wring every last ounce of goodness out of every stage in a process, last week I had one of those why did I never think of this before epiphanies.
It’s no good to dye fabric with now, but it will dye paper!
Decanting the dye dregs into jam jars, rolling up scrap paper and standing them in the jar.
Then just let science take over: the water soaks in and climbs up the dry paper bringing the remaining pigment in its wake.
When they’re soaked through, or the water in the jar has dried up, or when I just need to clear some space I empty the lot into a bucket to finish intermingling and eventually dry.
It’s satisfying on so many levels: using up color, repurposing scrap paper, creating patterns for future collages and art works. It does it’s own thing when left to its own devices. It’s messy and unpredictable (just like me) And it’s effectively better than free!
More variations on the theme:
A little while ago I told you about my plan to make a quilt.
So far I’ve completed 9 5×5 squares……
I started by recycling a quilt I made years ago, stripping it down for usable fabric, but there wasn’t going to be enough to complete the project.
I scoured boot sales, charity shops and my wardrobe for possible cut-up-able clothing, and finally the shop-that-sells-everything came up trumps with 2 large offcuts of pink cotton velvet.
Although pink isn’t a color I plan to use, but I chose it for it’s 2 very easy options: + yellow = orange, and + blue = purple.
These arrived at the end of last week, so the weekend was dying time!
It has a certain wonky appeal, which I put down to IK‘s aversion to ironing.
More precisely, IK’s aversion to clearing space to set up the ironing board. Coupled with the memory of a sewing time many years ago when I let IK iron on the carpet instead of the ironing board. It didn’t end well for the carpet.
We ironed some pieces today (properly), they look much better for it. We agreed the ironing board should be left up while construction stage is still in progress! 😉
The dyed printer manual has really got me thinking about all the other redundant paper lurking in the house and office – future dying ideas………..
Added to previously explored and sucessfully played with……..
Any more for the list? Yeh……there must be! All suggestions welcomed 🙂
Big love for Dylusions Ink sprays!
The book is now fully colored, and drying. It’s quite soggy, so might take a while but I’ll post up some pics soon. Really pleased with how it’s turning out 🙂
It’s no secret, I’m a bitova Inkaholic.
So the dregs in the bottom of the ink jar, and all that drying ink on the rim? Jar Printing!
Another part of the process with the now familiar printer manual: Scrumpling!
Both before and after the inky stage, scrumpling the paper helps it dry unevenly
Uneven drying makes for gorgeous textural effects.
With sharp folds the fibres of the paper is damaged just enough to make it super absorbant, and make for darker lines and patterns.
The inks run to and through the chanels formed by the creases
This time last year I was just finishing a year’s foundation course in art and design.
For the end of year show I made a textile sculpture, but the design wandered off a long way from my original idea.
Although i liked the elements of it, I wasn’t happy with the overall look.
These are bits of a re-made version. It will be a wall-hung sculpture in 5 parts. 3 are nearly complete, the other 2 are nearly started.
I’ll post some more as it moves on.
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