Dual dramatic devore

Last week of term at Morley, so a dash to consolidate this term's learning ( as well as she a great group lunch outside in the garden).

Using my swirling screen, which I now think it too overpowering to use on its own, but which works when overlaid with a paper stencil of circles


I did some devore on a white silk / viscose satin ( this term has been more costly in terms of fabric required). I forgot my camera again, so did not photograph each stage of this process, but the steps were:

prepare paper stencil
apply devore paste to the silk / viscose satin through the screen
hot acid dye in the first colour ( burgundy, purply colour)
rinse thoroughly
dye again but this time in Procion MX blue/turquoise

As the fibres take the dye differently, the effect is this wonderful two-coloured piece.



After lunch a scramble to use up this term's print pastes. Setting up another open screen with masking tape to produce a grid along the lines of the devore on the velvet, I applied the pastes along the print well in blobs of two colours, to give these lovely ombre ( graded shades) effects.

First of all, aubergine and teal on top of an indigo, shibori dyed cotton


Then, the same shades on a piece of white cotton sateen


I have also managed to put needle to textile this week as well, with more success with the lattice smocking


Quite different end result with the cotton being much flatter than the synthetic printed textile.

Divine devore, a finish and a new stitching experience

So, after this long, thankfully I got to Morley on Thursday and carried on working with devore and hot acid dyeing. Devore is a many-stepped process, so it is not surprising that the fabrics are usually costly and used in clothing with minimal cutting and seaming.

Starting from this white silk/viscose velvet



which progressed via this screen printed design ( which I'm calling "Frank Lloyd Wright meets Charles Rennie Mackintosh at the Willow Tea Rooms")



to finish as this wonderful teal scarf, dyed using Kemtex hot acid dyes.



I hope I'll be able to repeat this colour, as I did take notes while I added a dash of the and a smidgeon of that.

Next up, a finished cot quilt. Liberty lookalike braid panels ( donated to our group) machine pieced with neutral panels, and then hand-quilted a la Nikki Tinkler.



Lessons learned from this one,

1 if you are going to use a quilting stencil, make sure you remember which way up you placed your cables, so that they are going in the direction you want - please don't ask me any I am writing that one

2 if you are going to use hand-dyed threads ( particularly red) makes sure to test them for colour-fastness first

3 similarly, if you are going to use a thread that gives a unique finish, make sure that you can get more of it before you start your project


As my samples from Morley are accumulating, I'm using some of the synthetics to try out stitching methods that I've never tried. First up, lattice smocking

A bit all over the place, not helped by the fact that is was done while watching the extended version of " The Fellowship of the Ring", but worth exploring further.