QC6 Day 16

After I finished posting last night, I realized I forgot to include a picture of the one new thing I did yesterday.  I tried a product called Solar Fast, which works similar to sun printing.  You apply the solar fast dye to the fabric and place things on top to create shadows (items from nature, stencils, etc.); you can also make transparencies of photos but I don't have the equipment here to do that.  Cover with glass or something sheer (I used organza) and place in the sun for about 30 minutes.  Then remove and place in hot water with the solar fast wash or synthropol.  I used teal dye on top of a fabric that was previously dyed, a lighter teal color.  That's why the impressions you see are not white.  The actual color is not quite as brown/gray as it appears in the picture.

Today was rainy most of the morning and again late afternoon.  We decided it was a good day to try indigo dyeing - I started getting pieces ready yesterday - all different types of shibori.  Indigo dyeing is very different from the Procion MX dyes we usually use.  Its prepared in a large bucket (vat) and is a yellow-green color in the vat.  Items are submerged for 2-3 minutes, then allowed to sit for 15 minutes; then they can be dipped again if you want a more intense color. When they come out of the dye and the air hits them, the color change begins from green to blue.  The vat can be kept going for several months, unlike the MX dyes that only last a day or 2 (or a few hours depending on the process you use).  The top group of photos show some of the different ways the fabric & scarves have been manipulated.  The second collage shows parts of the dyeing process.  We only dyed some of the pieces today; the others will be done another day this week.

I also did a little bit on two started pieces today.  First is the neutral collage that was dyed blue;  I fused on a binding and wanted to show the 2 side by side.  I also plan to add some hand stitching for embellishment.

Below is the Artistic Artifacts row which I've added a border to and layered with batting and backing for quilting.  The binding will be the same as the strips between each section, so that will tone down the orange a bit.

 And finally, another rainy day resulted in another beautiful sunset!