Painting Skies on Textile Tutorial

On pre-soda soaked cotton fabric, using dye (Procion fibre reactive dyes) liquid concentrates that I mixed from powder, I painted in some sky and clouds. To achieve the gradation from dark to light, I went over the top area twice with a dark blue and lightened the blue dye with a chemical (urea) water as I worked my way to the bottom. The clouds needed some detailing so I....

placed some mixed dye thickener (sodium alginate) in a container and....

added a small amount of blue dye.

Here is the piece after some thickened dye is brushed onto the bottoms of the clouds. 

Here is the piece after it has been cured in plastic overnight and then rinsed. You can see there is some lightening which is to be expected. What a great start this would be for a landscape art quilt.

On this piece I added some dye thickener (mixed sodium alginate) by brush to the fabric in a sun burst shape. The thickener acts somewhat as a resist.

Here it is pictured above the textured clouds. I painted around the sunburst as much as possible and the thickener kept the other dyes from bleeding into that area.

This is the completed and rinsed piece. I think a little thread painting would complete this piece.

I tried a dramatic sunset over water.

When you are painting one panel, you might as well be painting two as you've already mixed the  dye colours which is the time consuming part.

Wouldn't this sky panel be fun to add stitching or applique to. 

Sunrise over water. These rich colours were achieved by painting over each area about three times with the unthickened dye concentrates, allowing for a little time between the layers so that the dye was absorbed into the cloth. I plan to be in the studio again tomorrow and would like to paint this last image in some other colour combinations. Suggestions?

Textile Necklace using Hand Dyes

Hand Dyed Textile Necklace

Oh my gosh this textile necklace was fun to make and it feels light to wear.  I was inspired on a recent vacation by another traveler's hand created bead necklaces which were gorgeously unique. And since I 've been wanting to use some of my extra hand dyed fabrics, I put the two ideas together and decided to try making my own necklace today. What else to do with a Sunday afternoon when I should could be weeding the garden!



Completed Textile Necklace

Looking through my stash of hand-dyed light fabric, I found this piece of low immersion dyed 'lawn' fabric. It was 56" long.

I pressed it and ironed over 1 3/4". The seam allowance was a 1/4" leaving 1 1/2" X 2 for a 3" casing which became the necklace. Notice I didn't cut it off the large piece of material before I sewed it in order to avoid distortion of the material as it is a loose weave and stretches easily.

 

Note: When I make another necklace, I will shorten my stitch length and match my thread so as to not show any stitching when a large bead is inserted into the casing.

 The seam allowance was trimmed to a little over 1/8"

 I turned the piece with a large safety pin.

 I did not press it after turning.

Placing a bead in the end. It needed to be loose enough to move the bead down to the middle. The largest beads which I used in the middle three was a little over 1/2" in diameter.

 Then I tied an overhand knot.

 I added more beads and knots, alternating from side to side. These are the beads I recycled from an old necklace.

 I think it looked quite pretty just tied with a bow and then of course you could adjust the length to what you were wearing it with but I decided for a more sophisticated look and added a clasp.

It was a little tricky to get the tube of fabric through the small metal circle on the clasp but it went. The fabric was pulled through to what length I decided was appropriate for me (about 20"). I double knotted the end and clipped off the excess fabric. You could add a few stitches to ensure it doesn't unknot.

For the toggle end of the clasp, I tied one knot then moved down an inch and tied two knots together. The reason for this was that two knots up by the toggle made it difficult to slip the toggle through the ring of the other part of the clasp.

 

As you can see I had about 7" to spare so I guess for this length of necklace about a 50" piece would do. I used 19 beads and they got a little smaller in size as they went away from the center. 

The variation in colour of hand dyed fabrics creates an interesting gradation as you go along the necklace. I can't wait to dye up some specific fabric strips with some chosen colour schemes. What about red for the center with orange to gold leading out from each side. So much for just using up some of my current fabric scraps. Have any of you ever included textiles in your jewelry? 

Spring Flowers Painted on Fabric

The following 3 textile pieces are painted onto cotton lawn material which will have a stabilizer attached before being free motion stitched.  The loose look of the lilacs delights me as it is more watercolour like than most of the textile pieces I have made so far. Hmm, how to apply that technique to other pieces???

Spring lilacs. Perhaps only the leaves and a very few blooms will need stitched details.

Okay, I know these look like yellow blobs but I am convinced I can stitch the shape of a daffodil onto them.

First I sponged some dark dye and then the lighter mauve dye. Although I can't remember for sure even though this was only last week, I believe the dye was thickened. After the coloured dyes had dried a bit, I added the drawn black line by squeezing thickened black dye through a small metal nib attached to the plastic squeeze bottle.

Spring is coming and it is time to think about spring blooms and also about feeding the birds that are migrating through.

Wild turkeys. Where we were bird watching two different children came up over the period of an hour we were there glasses for more 'exotic' birds. Both greeted the turkeys with "Hi turkey" as if they knew them. How delightful.

Acorn woodpecker

Broadbilled hummingbird. The cage around the feeder gave the birds somewhere to perch after drinking.

Tutorial: What is Needed for Painting on Fabric with Dyes

 

A fat quarter newly out of the dye studio

Dyeing fabric with Procion Fibre reactive dyes requires a bit of measuring and mixing. Dharma Trading online company has what you need as well as information about direct dye painting. Click here for their site.

Click here for another one of my blog posts about painting with dye concentrates. here is another post about drawing on top of splashed dyes.

Measuring lemon yellow dye powder.

The products and mixtures that are needed for the direct application method of applying dyes. The green bottle in the upper left is mixed urea water and beside it is a print paste. The three packages on the back wall are sodium alginate powder for thickening the dyes, soda ash powder for presoaking fabric and urea pellets for mixing the dyes. The four dye powders I use are lemon yellow, fuchsia, turquoise, and better black. I use glass jars for mixing the dye concentrates and for storing them in the fridge (be sure to label well)

 The apple, pear and grapes were painted using dye concentrates. Please not I did not thickened the dyes for this application, preferring a loose look.

 Well you can't spend everyday in the dye studio or what would you ever have for inspiration?

My border collie on a walk in the desert.

Jeeping in the desert.

Jeeping in the desert when it didn't go so well???

Next post will include the winner of the draw with her hand painted fabrics and a newly completed commission of hand dye painted fabrics.

Dye Painting: Lights, Mediums and Darks

PAINTING WITH DYES ONTO MERCERIZED COTTON FABRIC

10 Painted Fabric Pieces Ready for Quilters

CONSIDERING VALUES WHEN PAINTING

Considering the value of colours is as important when creating fabric for quilting, as it is when painting a picture. Here is one approach.

I have laid in the lightest yellow. Remember when painting with dyes your colours will be slightly lighter when washed so put the colour down a little stronger than you want the finished piece to be. In the lightest yellow, I have also left so speckles of white (areas without dyes)

Next I put in the darkest shade of yellow. I put it towards a green. I might also have painted with a colour created from yellow and it's complement purple but in this instance I didn't want to chance greying the piece.

For contrast with the cool yellows, I decided to add a little warm yellow (Lemon Yellow Procion MX dye with a small amount of  Fuschia) to the flower.

The medium value of yellow was added to complete the flowers.



  

Now for the cactus itself. I mixed up three values of green. I find for mixing the darkest value, I have to add a lot more black than one would think.



Completed piece. After this step, the piece is placed onto a sheet of plastic. I allow it to dry a little before closing it up in plastic. Then the piece is cured at 70 degrees for 24 hours and then washed.

A similar process was used with the red blooms.

If you are interested in having a piece of fabric created for you, email me at egidman@kootenay.com These fabric pieces are easy to mail and make great reasonably priced gifts.