More Dyeing Fun

I played with the dyes that arrived from KraftKolour. I mixed the powders (about 50/50) to get an orange from the red & yellow, a purple from the red & blue, and a green from the blue & yellow. These pieces of fabric are the results of the baggies "cooking" in the sun using only one colour per piece so I have a colour reference for the future. I mixed up far too much dye so had a go later in the week as well with some yarn. And I've still got some mixed up dye left. Apparently they gradually lose reactive strength once mixed with water so I'm probably not going to get much else if I try to use them - but I will chuck something in to see what happens. If it doesn't work I haven't lost anything as I can always dye it again. I really like the Rubine.

This is the yarn that I think looks like the plumage of the Spendid Wren. I first dyed the yarn blue, then overdyed with red, purple and rubine. I was so pleased with it I started crocheting a top for myself as soon as it was dry! It will be a miracle if I look as good in this as the wren does in his finery :-)

A parcel arrived this week from KraftKolour http://www.kraftkolour.com.au/. I ordered some Procion dyes of my very own after the fun I had the previous couple of weekends. I decided on the 3 primaries and black, and then had a rush of blood to the head and added Rubine just because it took my fancy. They arrived in perfect condition so now I just have to pluck up the courage to actually use them. Bonnie at KraftKolour was very helpful when I explained that I was a beginner.

I've got a couple of things I want to do. The first thing I want to do is dye a piece of fabric with the pure colour and also mix the secondary colours from the primaries and dye a piece of fabric in each of them. So I'll have 8 samples of single colours. I want to add some more colour to the balls of yarn I dyed previously to get rid of the white that's showing. I have got some cotton yarn already skeined up too which I'll use several colours on. That's probably enough for one day. As a future project I also want to dye some really old faded and worn blue t-shirts and then cut them into 1/2" strips to knit and/or crochet. I thought I'd dye them first to make sure they take the dye rather than cut and knit only to discover they're not what I thought they were and don't dye. I'm going to wait to do that though until I have a bit more of a "feel" for what colours I get with what I've mixed today.

This is what my laundry looked like while preparing to dye. I mixed the powdered dye into a liquid in the laundry tub with all the doors closed to minimise any dye dust floating about. Then I did the actual dyeing just outside the laundry as I have a wall which is a great height for working at. This area isn't seen by visitors to the house so I figured if I made a mess and dyed the bricks it wouldn't matter too much - better than spillage inside the house.

These are some El Cheapo brushes I bought at the $2 shop - I went in looking for something to hold the bags such as washing up bowls or cat litter trays. They didn't have those but I thought I'd try the brushes at $2 for 4. They were brilliant for mixing the powdered dyes into a liquid. I'll be going back to buy the rest of their stock as soon as I can.

This is one of the washing up bowls with the dyed fabric just "sitting" in the sun. I placed it on the bricks in the sun as that was the warmest spot in the garden. I folded the tops of the bags over to prevent evaporation.

All the dyeing sunbathing. As this is my first attempt I mixed up far too much dye and will probably have to have another go in a few days to use it up - apparently it lasts about a week as a liquid if not refrigerated - and I don't have spare room in the fridge. This is absolutely the hardest part - leaving for 24 hours as I'm sure that will give me the strongest colour. I've told Russ he needs to eat more ice cream - I need more containers :-)

I'm back...

These are the fruits of the last 2 weekends. The smaller group were dyed at my friend Joan's place in Leschenault, Western Australia and the larger group were dyed with the help of Joan Lock at a retreat in Dwellingup, WA. Both were using up old Procion dyes on cotton and now I think I might have to buy some dyes to do some more experiments of my own. Wonder how long it will be before I am offering them to some unsuspecting person saying "they're old dyes and we can have a bit of a play, they may work, they may not" :-)

Both sessions were great fun. The smaller batch were done without bags and we managed to create an almighty mess between myself, Joan and my 10 year old friend Andrea. We also didn't realise we should have added salt to the Soda Ash soak. The larger batch were done by putting a little dye concentrate in a bag, adding the yarn (was supposed to be a piece of fabric but I had yarn) then adding enough soda ash and salt solution to wet it all, another tablespoon or so of dye concentrate in another colour, squishing a bit and then leaving for 24 hours. This was decidedly less messy :-)

Now I need to spend some time looking at dyeing websites for ideas, recipes and supplies. I am currently reading Complex Cloth by Jane Dunnewold - awesome book. This copy is from the libary - it looks like a "must have". Uh oh, I think I am hooked.

Purses finished

Today I finished off these two purses in time to give them as birthday gifts for a couple of my friends. I made them using my own "Artists Canvas" purse pattern that is available on my website www.lizardofoz.com.au

Crochet embellishment 3

I crocheted a few pink flowers last night so that I could see the effect of them grouped together on the t-shirt. I've made all different ones - just making them up as I went along. I like the look of these against the uniform and regular half treble crochet I used to make the basic t-shirt. I much prefer this self-coloured textural look to the embroidery experiments I did previously. So, lots more crochet flowers coming up.

Most of today has been spent making up orders and replenishing stock. I'm off to a retreat this weekend and taking my goodies to sell there. I'm taking my Seven Sisters quilt so that I can continue quilting it, Karen's Konstellation in case I finish the Seven Sisters as I don't think I 've got that much more of the centre panel to go, and the pink thread so I can crochet some more flowers. These make a nice break from hand quilting so I don't get too achy from doing one thing all the time. Knowing me I'll probably pack quite a few other things to do too even though I should have learned by now that I always take too much.

I took on newsletter duties for the WA Fibre & Textiles Association recently so I am currently compiling my first issue. As is usually the case with these things this first issue seems to be taking me forever. I looked at my schedule yesterday and frightened myself with all that I have to do over the next month. I am determined to keep blogging - although I will miss a few days while on retreat.

crochet embellishment 2

These are the two yarns I had in mind for embellishing the pink t-shirt. The multicoloured one is very slubby and proved too difficult to weave through the crochet. Weaving also damaged the yarn. I didn't like the effect of the purple and pink variegated yarn once woven although it was easy to weave as it is smooth. In the photos you can see the bright yellow tacking too. This is for placement purposes and will be removed after embellishing the top. So, back to square one as far as embellishing is concerned.

I have now decided to try adding texture rather than colour, and to create a more informal panel as I didn't like the regularity of the weaving either. I like the idea of lots of flowers using the same thread that I used to make the top stitched randomly over the panel and extending over the shouler area. The beige flowers are experiments - I like the size of them so will now go ahead and make lots from the pink thread.

Whirl Shape Drawn and Tested

I have just finished drawing and testing the Whirl shape you can see here. A customer requested this shape which is formed by 4 intersecting circles that then tesselate as a one-patch. I have also drawn the shapes to go around the edges to make the quilt top rectangular. These straight edges make it easy to attach borders and/or binding to the finished quilt top. You can see from the photo of the back of the block that I found it easier to tack the seam allowance of inward-facing curves onto the papers if I clipped them. The seam allowance along the straight sides is left "flapping" so that it doesn't get caught when piecing - which again makes it easier for attaching borders.

Improving Crochet Skills

I can crochet but have always wanted to get to that stage of being able to design things myself rather than simply follow a pattern. I also like the idea of embellishing a fabric of basic stitches with more crochet using decorative yarns. So I've been playing with various yarns and different sized hooks to get a better understanding of what happens when you change various things. Hopefully I will be able to better predict results and more quickly bring an idea into reality. I have not worried about colours for these experiments - just weight and type of yarn, and the size of the hook. I am primarily interested in cotton yarn so that I can combine the crochet with cotton fabrics to make clothing. If everything is cotton I believe it will be easier to overdye the finished garment to give it a more planned "look".

Bags from A4 Samples

Have just posted 4 pics of some bags I created from some of the A4 samples that have been lying around for ages. I like them but they're a bit small. Will be making bigger samples in future so I can make bigger bags :-)

Lizard bag

 

Blue bag from A4 sample

 

 

Bags from A4 samples

Andrea Quilt Sandwiched

I've just finished sandwiching this quilt made from the Andrea blocks. Now for the hand quilting.

Stencils & Fabric Painting

These were created using flour paste as a resist - a technique demonstrated by Zoe at a local contemporary quilters meeting. I made my own stencils and applied the flour paste about a year ago. Last week, after going to the craft show, I was inspired to add the paint (Jo Sonja acrylics with textile medium 50/50). This is what they look like once washed to remove the paste and then dried/heat set.

Banksia Flower

I took this photo of a Banksia flower soon after purchasing a Canon Powershot Pro1 digital camera and I've used it to test how to upload a photo. Really happy with the camera - now just have to remember to take it with me wherever I go. This blog will be updated as and when I think of something to post. I'd like to use this blog in the future to get feedback on my textile work - which means I'd better go stitch!

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