Painting with Thickened Procion mx dyes

Here are some snapshots of my experiment with painting using thickened procion mx dyes. I tried a lot of different mark making ideas. Learned that you CAN get it too thick but adding some soda ash water helped with restoring fluidity. 

I only used three colors and a portion of each was shaded with some jet black from Dharma Trading Co. Love those people and their lemurs and kangaroos! If you place an order with them, you'll understand about the animals. 

Next up are pieces that I soaked in soda ash, scrambled (a Candy Glendenning word), and poured some dye stock over the tops of each. I then, as Candy would say, massaged them quite a bit, as I wanted no white spots. 

I lined them up on my steps and shot this picture. I wee puffy cloud must have been floating overhead! I totally love how these came out. 

I used the same dye colors on both sets of fabric. I think I could cut portions of all of them, add one more distinct color, and put them together in a quilt block. Black would be such an eye popper! But I think a deep burgundy would be more to my liking. 

It's been a very busy week:

I finished making and mailing all of my ATCS(3) and fabric Postcards(6) for 2014. If I use the above two sets of fabric for my StitchFingers swaps, I have Nov and Dec done. I may choose to do more to them,,,,  I also finished 2 book pages. I emailed one out. The other  is waiting for a postal strike to be over. 

On a decluttering note, I emptied 4 containers of stuff, most of which was delivered to various places in town. Under the guest bed is now 50% emptied. 

I have gift bags set up for collecting my Christmas gifts for each family. A list attached to each bag will keep me aware of where I am in filling them. I think this year may be "the year of the pillow case CHRISTMAS". I love making them. They  are quick and easy. Useful for most everyone. And I can personalize them for my special people!  

My house was kept neat, dishes done, sink shiny (thanks to FlyLady.net and using routines!), and our menu plan worked well. Laundry was kept up to date and the ironing had a one day delay was all! 

This week has been very productive for me. I am taking today, Saturday, and going just a bit slower. But then, posting to my blog is one of those things on my list so I guess I'm still getting things done! It's hard to think of things as "work" when I enjoy it all. Yes, even getting ironing done is pure enjoyment for me. My Mom would do ironing for others when I was a kid, so it's kinda nostalgic for me. 

With all this being said, I think it's time to;

Let's Create Today!

Luann

Creating fabric from fabric,

Using an ink jet printer and specially prepared fabric I made a copy of one of my mini art quilts. 

A few 2" squares and a portion cut from another fabric came together for this Out Of Africa book page. 

Original fabric was a 5 inch square that I enlarged before printing. I wish I could find more of this fabric. 

Let's Create Today,

Luann

Burgundy and Bronze, oh my!

 

I am really liking the bronze thread on top of the burgundy in this fabric book page. 

I will be using these two colors together in some fall gift items. 

Let's Create Today,

Luann

Whiffle Balls and Ice Dyeing

Have you tried whiffle balls the size of golf balls as a resist when ice-dyeing?

This piece is drying on my screen porch. I used rubber bands to secure those little plastic gems. If you look at the picture above, you can see that some of the bands were tighter than others. Looser ones allowed more of the dyes to penetrate. 

How I did this:

Soaked fabric in soda ash solution overnite, usually I only soak for 30 minutes. 

Squeezed out the solution, saved it for next time. 

Secured my golf balls with rubber bands. The piece is narrow, so I just placed them down the middle. 

I then put them into a 1 gallon plastic pitcher I use in my dye studio experiments. 

Next came ice cubes.  I wanted my dye powder to break and give me lots of colors. 

It was then time to sprinkle on the dye powder, after putting on my particulate mask!

Now they needed to go out in the sunshine, and after 3 weeks of dreary days, I was anxious!

As the powders started to combine with the water from the melting ice, I chose to use my fine mister and keep the dye flecks off the walls of my pitcher. This also aided in getting the ice cubes to melt. 

Then came the process of waiting, cold rinses, cold soaks, hot rinses, hot washes, hot soaks, well I'm sure you get the idea. I find it very important to be sure all dye particles are taken care of. I don't want surprises later on. 

What did I take away from this experiment?

I will try it again, with these changes:

rubberbands will be snugly secured. 

longer batching time. 

use a raised platform in a rectangle pan so I have a single layer of ice. 

find a "sugar" shaker for applying my dye powder, to have better distribution across the entire piece. 

AND,

I will make another batch of dye powders. Perhaps even tweaking the mixture a bit!!

This one was made up of equal parts of watermelon, orange crush, Sahara, daffodil, azure, sea glass, baby blue, hyacynthia, & bougainvillea. These were from Dharma Trading Co., Spring 2014 Pantone inspired collection. 

If you have any questions or comments please contact me. Until then,,,,

Let's Create Today,

Luann