Fabric painting

I bought a copy of the new book by Deborah O’Hare of Quiltroutes. Besides showing all of her lovely journal quilts, the books gives lots of information about her fabric and stitch techniques.

As I am lacking space just now, due to imminent building work, I wanted to try her method of fabric painting, using  Dye-na-flow fabric paints. Fabric is laid out on a waterproof board, with no fabric pre-treatment. three experiments are on the go at the weekend.

The initial results were paler than I wished, so I overdyed parts of the cloth with the undiluted blue.

Much more interesting and lots to explore in future with different folding techniques, perhaps some from the book, Folding Techniques for Designers, , which has kept my fingers busy this weekend.

May journal - still in fresh water

I’ve got very behind posting about this year’s journal quilts.  May is still on the theme of blue-green algae.

Testing out prints in the sketchbook with acrylic paint

Trying out different way of appliquéing silk, rouleaux strips

Final piece

April journal - turning to fresh water

Blue-green algae

Algal “blooms” form in both salt water and fresh water, but I wanted to focus on a microscopic form that grows in fresh water, hence blue-green algae.  While algae are needed and are beneficial in many aquatic ecosystems, excessive nitrogen and phosphorous, caused by farm or industrial run-off can cause overgrowth and “blooms”. These can be toxic, particularly to animals.

Hand-dyed fabric, experimenting with bobbin work, gathered ribbon, and chain stitch embroidery by machine ( great fun).

Textiles to drool over........

........if I had the time, the money, the places to go to wear these, I would be here tonight, particularly to see this....
and this


A lovely pdf catalogue is available to download free.

Procion P painting

I've been intrigued for some time by the fabrics produced by Mickey Lawler of Skydyes and wondered if it would be possible to duplicate these effects with Procion P dyes.  A day of experimenting at Morley led to results worth exploring further.
Cotton cloth set up on a batik frame, dampened and Procion  P dye applied with different brushes and sponges.  This is a dye recipe containing reddish blue, turquoise and black.

Detail of how the dye splits as it travels through the cloth

Result of painting directly on the cloth when it is pinned directly to the backing cloth, rather than on a frame

Dye applied on to crinkled cloth on the print table ( bottom) and applied over clingfilm, then crinkled, ( top).  This technique gives great marks.

Now to explore what happens with complementary colours.  Too much inspiration, too little time.

Guddling

This Scottish word originally meant to catch fish with one's hands. It has another generally accepted use, which is to muck about making a complete mess. Definitely applied to this week's Morley activities. First up, preparation of a screen for breakdown printing with Procion P dye pastes.


Pastes are applied to the screen, like icing a cake, then objects are embedded in to it, and the screen is left to dry. As the paste is quite thick, this screen has been left to dry until next week. An added bonus are the drips that come through the screen, and I used this to make a quick mono print - no pic of this, as I also had to leave this to dry.

Before starting on this, I set up a tray dye,of cotton sheeting, with Procion MX in blues and brown.



Beautiful fabrics emerged. These are not technically perfect as they have specks of undissolved dye on them, but I rather like this effect.



The second piece was folded before pleating, leading to one half with sharp and the other half with more faded versions of the same marks.

Planes of pleating

A morning with stitching friends this week to try out various gadgets including a fabric pleating machine.

Designed for gathering fabric for smocking, we saw much more creative uses for it. These samples will be manipulated in the next few weeks if all goes to plan.