Disperse Dyes for Dyeing and Printing - Pt. 2

Fiber Junkies met in Oct at Gen's house to continue to work on the technique of dyeing and printing with disperse dyes.  The first meeting was to prepare/paint the papers, the second meeting do the transfer. 

 You can see how easy it is - lay the painted paper face down, iron with high heat. Even if you fabric is not real heat tolerant, you do have the paper in between to serve as a buffer.

Whatever was painted on the paper appears on the fabric. 

Mary also tried blended wool (upper left) worked well

Here is one of Denny's masks on left and how she uses it on right. Denny is great at layering and layering. It's kind of addictive once you start. You can keep adding more and more color or patterning without changing the hand of the fabric.

I loved working with sheers, the upper right started with a background, a butterfly was added and then a tree on top of that (on right). The imagery and color is more subtle so it's hard to over do something.

 And a sheer.

 Some wonderful samples of our days accomplishments.

 Kate brought some curtain samples from a decorators book. They were fun to work with as they has the cardboard border all around giving them stability.

 Here's Gen modeling the last fashion in hat wear.

Gen showed us a neat tool for machine quilting - on left you can barely see it as it's clear. It has a slit going down through the middle which is where you sew and can move it in an direction so the line is continuous. You need a special foot to use this tool. Gen is sewing on her right, loves this tool especially good for those of us who can't sew a straight line.  Well I'm in!!

 And Denny's happy and latest quilt she showed us during lunch. It's sewn with long strips and appliqued flowers on top.

 Mary's latest piece is exquisite, created with old linens and lace and a theme of "silver dollars" as I've always called them - also a money plant.

Such a happy day.

Disperse Dyes for Dyeing and Printing

Last month we ventured into a new technique for us -  disperse dyes for transfering and printing on blended fabric. The fabric has to have at least 50% of a synthetic, preferably a fabric like polyester which is more heat tolerant than something like nylon.

Denny has worked with this technique extensively and led us through a day of fun and experimenting.

First thing was to show us her samples for inspiration.

Some of the background created with this technique used a silk screen on top as a second layer.

Lots of layering - much of what you see is the result of layering first one paper painted with disperse dyes, then the second paper and so on.

Denny uses lots of masks where she creates a background, lays a mask down - in this case the image of the girl, then lays more papers down on top to iron the dyes onto the background. When the mask is lifted you have this wonderful effect.

Here's our work space - lots of paper - computer paper works well, which has disperse dyes painted on top of them in any manner you want.

They can be solid, stripes, dots etc, there are endless possibilities in the way you paint the paper. You can also silk screen an image on paper using these dyes.

A transfer pen also works well, applying it to paper and then ironing the paper onto fabric to transfer the marks.

There are also iron on transfer pens in colors.

Denny also brought lots of dyes to share so we were off and running.

The first step is very fast and easy...any paper you paint on is fair game. The above is randome dots created with a brush. You can even use the newspaper underneath where it is the "over-flow" paint on it.

These papers were created using a stencil.

This paper was multi-colored....

and this one had stripes. It looks like this paper was laid over corrugated cardboard and rubbed with a fabric crayon which is a form of disperse dye.

This stencil was passed around a lot as you can see.

After these are dried, they are ironed right side down on a piece of blended or 100% polyester. The dyes are transferred through heat and only work on fabric with synthetic in it.

We just met for the second part of this mini workshop so .......Next time, the results. I will say, this technique has endless possibilities and it just gets more exciting as you work. One thing leads to another...leads to another.

Happy Halloween

Hope it's fun and filled with cute little witches and globins who will take lots of candy...... and not leave you .....holding the bag......with so much leftover candy

to eat...... SIGH......

SAQA - Studio Art Quilt Association

 The Studio Art Quilt Association is an international organization dedicated to the promotion of art Quilts. It affords each member - professional or non professional membership the opportunity to be a part of national and traveling exhibits, mentoring programs, tutorials on line....the list goes on.

 Linda Sexton-Patrick started the group several years ago; it was very small, maybe 4 or 5 members. It stayed that way for quite a while but you know how it goes, all of a sudden it has blossomed. We only meet 3 - 4 times a year; we met today at my home after a long absence from each other along with much enthusiasm. We had some wonderfully talented new people who will add so much to our group.

 Lynne showed us a wonderful top that has yet to be quilted. She has a wonderful color eye and dyes all of her fabrics to use in her work.

 One of our new members - Jenny Perry showed us a piece she made using photo transfers and some hand painted fabrics. I really loved the angle she captured.

 And another piece from Jenny based on a photo she took.

 Julie Bagamary challenges herself with a piece a day for 30 days. Perhaps you remember her challenge of "hands". Julie says at first it's very exciting, but by about the 15th day, it's "why did I decide to do this" but shortly after that it's how can I push myself outside the box to come up with another idea. I happen to love this bird series...... so Bravo Julie. She also has a wonderful way of mounting using wafer thin velcro and boards from Cheap Joes.

 And another new member - Shirley Parkin showed us the type of work she loves to do - first of all, very colorful, also whimsical and beautifully appliquéd.

 And a detail.

 Lynn DellaPosta created this wonderful and very large quilt.

 This was from a new member - Mary Jane Lappin. Her work revolves around photo transfers on different fabrics, sheers and opaques. It is bordered with a Dupionni silk and then placed in a shadow box. Really elegant.

And Susan W. Lee, not new to the art quilt world but new to our group and we are so lucky to have her. She's a master of color and design. This was not one of her new pieces, they are all out in galleries but it was still new to us.
After a long break, I'm finally home and ready to get back into the swing of things...including my blog.
Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Fun at Folly Pt 2

Moving along, Kate and Mary had never dyed with acid dyes and it's one of my favorite things to do as you get gorgeous color. Acid dyes only work on animal fiber so wool and silk take it beautifully. They also exhaust themselves quickly so you are left with clear water and very colorful fabric at the end of the process - usually around 20 mins. 

There are many ways to fix the fabric for dyeing, but my favorite is to stuff it into a nylon stocking and secure the end. I throw it into the pot of boiling dye and when it comes out, the center part will still be white; I then throw it into pot for seconds just to add a tad more color. Doing it this way gives a lot of variation within the color. You can also go back and overdye it.

Mary rubber banded one of her pieces which was very effective. She also had great success with her wool which she uses so much in her work.

This is Kates pieces which she dyed and then overdyed.

And all the while, this is the view we have.

It doesn't get any better.

Sometimes we'll have some champagne and this time brought the bottle down - well to protect it from any little bugs wanting to swim in luxury. We covered it with a piece of stocking - A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do! And it worked - No bugs in OUR bubbly!

So I always forget the apron but do have the good sense to wear old clothes.

AND NOW FOR THE YUMMIES....one of our ice dyes.

2 pieces of the same batik print dyed in 2 different ice dye color ways.

Mary had a cotton nightie she wanted to spruce up - WOW

And thanks to Kay Sorensen's who is the queen of kaleidoscope ice dyeing (check out her blog and upcoming exhibit)). Her beautiful pieces inspired us to try it. We still have more figuring to do but think we are off to a good start.

Mary did her own version which I loved...

and the flames.

Our blogger friend Robbie sent Mary some white cotton velveteen which we split into 3 pieces and ice dyed...well...YUUUMMMY! Thanks Robbie!

and results...

and more results. Having spent an extra day at Folly, we had much more fabric and as a joke we decided to weigh our fabric when we got home. Kate had close to 5 pounds, I was at 3.4 and Mary somewhere in between - that's a lot of fabric! So such great fun and I'm always so thankful to have such wonderful girlfriends as well as blogger girlfriends who never cease to amaze and inspire me...thank you.