Fiber Junkies Oct - Disperse Dyes

Fiber Junkies met recently at Gens for a fun day of experimenting with disperse dyes. We had a quick show and tell; Mary showed us her latest quilt and Gen showed us a number of pages from her beautiful journals but this one intrigued me with plastic wrap painting.

Denny is the real master of this technique and showed us many samples of what you can do. Disperse dyes are dyes painted on papers, allowed to dry and then transferred to polyester fabric. 100% synthetic will ensure the best results. Denny uses them in powder form; they can be mixed with water or alginate. Thickened alginate solution allows you to silkscreen with them or do deconstructive screenprinting, monoprinting etc.

The most fun thing about these dyes is that they can be layered and layered and layered, each time giving a different effect. They leave the fabric soft and do not have to be cured or treated with a mordant such as soda ash.

Denny has made a lot of masks by cutting out silhouettes in magazines. They are so effective when used in this technique.

We cover the ironing board with fabric because of off the edge oops. Using a dry iron (preferably one without holes), and applying gentle pressure, the heat will transfer the color onto the fabric. I especially love doing this technique on sheers. I use a lot of them as overlays.

Here is Gen using fabric crayons which is a form of disperse dyes. She is drawing a design on paper which she will then iron onto a piece of fabric. I used to be a Brownie Leader and one of the crafts we did with the girls was using fabric crayons to transfer a picture to a hankie for their mom for Mothers day or a little pillow which I sewed at home...great fun and easy.

More fabric crayons....

Using a stencil or thickened dyes through a silkscreen (right)

produces the following results. Some might think why not just use a screen and paint or mx dyes...this is just one more way to create imagery on fabric....the Pros - instant gratification without batching or treating the fabric with a mordant beforehand, also the hand of the fabric remains very soft ...and the layering...probably the best technique for this as the transparency of the dye allows other imagery to show through....The Cons...it will only work on synthetic...preferably 100% polyester.

This was made with rubbing plates...

The above left - a freeform drawing on paper. On the right, grass from outside used as a mask.

So here is one of the masks...

laid down on a fabric already printed with a pale purple design (below) and then the above paper laid on top

where the masks of silhouettes of children are removed, the image shows up so sharply

Here is the same mask where it picked up some of the color from a previous paper and then transferred to the fabric when laid down...it was a nice surprise.

The rubbing plate on the left produced the paper made with a crayon used on its side (on the right)

Denny's masks are wonderful...we all got to use them. The Halloween fabric on the right was created by Susan.

So here is one of the best examples of this technique I've seen. There is so much layering and color...Denny's philosophy is when you don't like something...add another layer...seems to work!
A great day...everyone had so much to contribute but special thanks to Denny for bringing all the supplies and fabrics for us to use.