QC6 Day 18

Wow!  Today we got to see the first of the indigo results!  That was fun.  I had only 1 of the 2 pieces I dyed on Tuesday that was dry, so that's all I have to show right now.  It is a rayon circular scarf, and I'm pleased with the way it turned out.  The other piece was pole dyed and it is still drying out.  Hopefully I will be able to rinse it tomorrow.  I dyed the rest of my pieces today (5 more) so it may take a day or 2 for them to dry.  Here's the scarf - on the left it is still wet; on the right it is dry.

I also experimented with using up some leftover dye by brayering it on fabric that was laid over top of stencils, to see if it would create a pattern like a rubbing.  This was somewhat successful, enough so that I will do a bit more experimenting.

 In the picture below, the blue piece is one that I dyed a few days ago - and had forgotten about!  I think it turned out really well, considering that (again) I was using up some leftover dye and experimenting a bit.

The next 3 photos are yet another experiment - comparing Solar Fast dye and sun printing.  For sun printing, certain paints react in sunlight leaving images on cloth of items used as resists.  I use Pebeo Setacolor paint for this.  One of my first QC6 posts was about a sun print I started with and continued to add layers to.  Solar Fast is a fairly new product by Jacquard that is a dye that reacts in sunlight.  So I took a fat quarter that had been previously dyed, split it into 2 pieces, and used Solar Fast on one and Setacolor on the other.  I did similar arrangements of ferns and set them in the sun.  I work on a foam core board that is covered with plastic, and cover the arrangement with organza tacked to the board to keep everything in place, especially on a windy day like today.  After 30 minutes the Solar Fast has to be washed out.  The Setacolor is paint so just gets heat set with an iron.  The photos show the before, during and after of the process; Solar Fast is on the left, Setacolor on the right.

It was about 1:30-2:00 in the afternoon when I set this out in the sun; ideally around noon is a better time of day when the sun is directly overhead.   I think that's why the sun print in particular is not as clear as it might be.  I think the Solar Fast may give a bit more depth to the print.  Both yield interesting results.  There are some other options for Solar Fast besides using natural objects; more experiments are in order!
 

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!