Ice Dyeing Pt. 3

Home and finished ironing the last of the pieces. 

Kate had found a huge linen sheet - brand new at a garage sale. It was a great find, beautiful fine linen but not sure how it would dye - results above and below.

Really like the linen...

A PFD mercerized....

and rayon which also takes the dye so well.

And the last of the linen which I think is my favorite, great color and texture.

And another pretty combo in a mercerized cotton....

and a reminder to check your gloves to make sure there's no holes in them. Guess where my glove had a hole?

Here's the dilemma we had while ice dyeing we ran out of racks as the vinyl shelving only held 3 bunches.

So we tried screening with clothespins to hold it in place which worked well but the weight of the bundles made it sink in the middle along with the ice migrating towards the center.

Screens already stretched and in a frame - very inexpensive from home improvement stores to lay on top, no clothespins, no sinking....Voila! problem solved and can't wait to try it out. The end! to a great 3 days with wonderful friends.

Ice Dyeing Pt 2

To continue from the previous post, 

the next morning, hanging our pieces out to dry was a challenge - crazy wind going on but everything sure did dry quickly.

Mary wanted to do some microwave dyeing as she needed lots of solids to go with her stash of mottled and deconstructive printed fabric.

As I mentioned before, we had a wonderful assortment of fabrics to work with. This was an old dresser scarf with gorgeous lace on each end. It looked to be a linen and dyed beautifully (even the lace).

and a detail.

Mary brought some commercial fabrics she wasn't in love with and tried overdyeing them - think she's loving them now.

The red piece (Mary's) was one of the solids she was wanting; she was working with silk noil which is a favorite of mine also as it takes the dye so well, has a lovely nubby texture and lots of stability to use as a base fabric unlike many silks which are slippery.

This was an overdyed piece which had poor results from a previous experiment...think it turned out really nice here. Mary went back and sprinkled dry bleach on top to break up some of the Fuchsia.

This was one of those "happy accidents" done in the ice dyeing tray. This fabric bunch was using blues; a gold colored dye blew over from the neighboring fabric bunch and mingled with blue. Wow, what great results! With ice dyeing, you just never know what's going to happen which is what makes it so much fun!

This is the same fabric (top and bottom) - a commercial white on white, dyed with the ice dyeing technique. You can see the difference from front to back. The front is actually lighter (top) because the white on white design is printed on the surface and doesn't take the dye. The back, free of the design, takes the dye more intensely. A fun 2 for the price of 1.

And of course the best part - being with girlfriends that love doing the same thing...

and watching the sunset while drinking some bubbly....doesn't get any better than that. Nope it really doesn't. Stay tuned for part 3.

Ice Dyeing at Folly

Our dear friend Kate has a wonderful second home on Folly beach which we sometimes venture to for a mini-retreat - Mary, Kate and myself.  We headed off this past week for 3 days to do some ice dyeing.

Arriving in early afternoon, our feet had barely touched the ground - we were so anxious to get started. We wanted to make use of every moment. The open garage which is underneath the house is a wonderful space where we can work - rain or shine....

and a smaller inside storage area where there's a microwave for dyeing and counters for holding our dyes. Years ago, I made large fabric samples of every dye color which helps so much when picking combinations to work together. You can see them spread out.

We started with ice dyeing. We've always used new cat litter pans with the vinyl shelving cut to a short length on top. Fabric is soaked in soda ash, laid on top of the vinyl and ice placed on top of that. Lots of scrunching will give wonderful patterning to the fabric when dyed with several colors.

We used 3 dye colors all of which work well together. Dye in a powdered form is sprinkled over the top of the ice and then covered with black plastic. The sun will go to work, allowing the ice to melt slowly; as it does the dyes on top strike the fabric. Since the ice is unevenly placed, it melts at a different rate allowing the dye to hit the fabric at different times.

We were anxious to see results but very impatiently waited until the following morning to rinse out. You can see the wonderful patterning on the fabric.

We used Fuschia as one of the colors which turned out to be very strong, but a fabric like the above can be overdyed.

I was dyeing lots of scarves for an order I had to fill for Parkway Crafts on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I didn't get to make as much yardage but a good feeling to get the scarves done.

We had enough vinyl shelving to cover 3 pans, so what to do to do for more ice dyeing. Kate had a great idea to use screening laid over the top of a pan and held in place with clothespins.

It worked great except the weight of the fabric made the screening sink in the middle a little, causing the ice to slide towards the center. We solved that problem....to be shown later.

We had great fun experimenting with all types of fabrics like the cotton gauze above....

and PFD mercerized cotton. Stay tuned for part 2 of our wonderful play days.

Fiber Junkies - Girlfriends

 Fiber Junkies had its March meeting at my house - our plans for the day - to work on printing with fugitive materials. You know what they say about the best laid plans......our gathering went from working/playing to celebrating and I might add, one of our happiest meetings ever.

 Even though we had lots of our stuff out...

 and ready to jump in...

We just had to celebrate the return of our 3 gals - Val, Gen and Denny. Val spends 2 months in the winter in Florida....we miss her so much and are thrilled she is back with us for the next 10 months.

 Gen (on left) has been gone due to family medical issues. Her dear hubby Ralph who was 92, passed away recently; he lived a very long, happy and healthy life. He lived by the rule - "A donut a day keeps the doctor away" and a donut a day he always had. He never had to take medicine, played golf up until the end and best of all had a wonderful marriage. A life worth celebrating and celebrate we did with our Gen...back with us.

 And Denny (left) who we've missed so much and haven't seen in months is still dealing with serious family medical issues but she did stop by for a short visit and we were so happy to see her. She has been cleaning out her studio and passing along some wonderful treasures to our group which you can see on the table.

 We also had a quick show and tell - Mary brought this lovely quilt with such a unique color combo.

 It's so striking in person.

 Kate has been experimenting with dry bleach which has some great effects.

Denny brought boxes and boxes of this stuff for all of us to try which we will do at the next meeting.

 And here...more treasures from Denny which we had a great time going through

So we never did get to printing but did go home with some nice treasures and best part got to be with dear girlfriends again - what a happy time.

Changing Hues

This is another piece finished for our upcoming Arboretum show in April. I started with a piece of fabric I "blotchy" dyed. This is the back of it. 

I often used this dye application technique when I did a lot of appliqué. By laying clear templates over the different areas of color, you could create some wonderful shading and color movements.

On this particular piece, I laid down different widths of masking tape and marbled it. Marbling is a fast process, not giving the tape time to fall off. After the piece was hand rinsed from the marbling process, the tape was removed revealing lines with lots of colors and movement.

I then layered and quilted it using free motion stitching; I followed the lines of the marbling which was a tradional wave pattern.

I knew I wanted to add something to the top but felt it had to be sheer to allow the marbling to show through. Organza is always high on my list - it takes a paint well, is crisp and holds it shape and easy to work with.

I used Dye na Flow which works on all fibers. It's the consistency of water and therefore somewhat transparent. I wanted to pick up the colors in the marbled fabric so I used yellow and orange.

After it had dried, I screened a leaf on top...many leaves actually.

I made the screen in several different sizes to have a nice variety to work with.

I tried to pick up several different colors in the leaves by careful placement of the screen.

I cut the leaves out (after drying), close to but not on the edge.

I went back with a woodburning tool and burned the edges. It is easier than cutting as organza being so thin, burns down quickly.

I scattered the leaves on the top; using a monofilament I stitched down the center and sides of each leaf so they could move and appear to be floating.

I binded it with a red hand-dyed fabric and here is the finished piece. You can see where the sheer leaves are present but still allow the background to show through. This was a fun piece to make.

Happy St. Patty's Day

 I'm in a supper club and as luck would have it, my turn fell on a holiday - today, perhaps a small one but a big fun one. I was born and raised in New York and often would take the day off from whatever to go into the city to watch the parade. It's a wild place on St. Patricks day and lots of fun. I also met my husband on St. Patty's day which he doesn't remember but I do! So for tonight...

 I've made some napkins and bought some sparklys for the table.

Also found this very sparkly (and maybe a little gaudy) Leprachauns hat which opened at the top, perfect for a plant and centerpiece. I've never had a Shamrock plant - they are so pretty and light, fluffy little shamrocks...which I didn't realize close at night. I thought I had killed it when I looked at it last night but this morning, it was all open and awake. Trouble is, it will probably be asleep during dinner.

Years ago, my husband had something to go to on St. Patty's day and wanted a green tie...so I made him a very BRIGHT green tie and some scarves for myself - both will come in handy tonight.

Should be a fun night...hope yours is too!