If you work with dyes, you know to keep your dye concentrates in the fridge. I have read that they start to lose their strength after about 5 weeks and as mine were in the fridge even a bit over that, I knew I needed to use them up. I had some fabric already pre soda soaked. I didn't have any sodium alginate thickener or urea water made up so thought I would simply paint with the dye concentrates. The fabric was divided into 4 so they were manageable at about 30 X 36 inches. As I use 4 1/2" X 6 1/2" motifs for my textile cards and also for making mug rugs, I marked off 7" and loosely painted within those strips. Sometimes I thought the sky could be water so the blue in one strip would overlap into the next set.
Red! I was trying to make a red background around white flowers (lower left). This really didn't work as the red dye bled too much into the petals. Working with thin dyes is a challenge but I am keen to keep trying.
Painting cotton lawn fabric with dyes. This fabric will be cut into pieces for use in textile cards and quilted mug rugs. |
Those spattered dots are going to be fun to work with. |
The fruit is on in full swing here in the Creston valley so I tried some berry and fruit motifs: blueberries, cherries, apples, pears, apricots, grapes and plums. With each piece of fruit I tried to leave a highlight and darken one side. This lead to a lot of bleeding but I was anxious to see if I could later add enough details in black thread so that the viewer would be able to identify the fruit.
Blueberries and Cherries in strips. Painted with thin dyes. |
Pears. |
Stay tuned to see how the fabric rinsed out and what I am doing with it. Just so you know I was pleased with the results. Remember without the sodium alginate thickener, the colours are more vibrant.
3 comments:
Love those splattered dot flowers, and the fruit will be mouth-watering with some additional stitching. What fun!
I love the dots as well! Can't wait to see what you do with them. They remind me of hollyhocks.
Each pattern is more delicious than the other Eileen!
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