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Thursday, November 10, 2011

Recent adventures in fabric dyeing

I've been suddenly busy, I'm not sure why, but I've done 4 dye baths in the last 5 days.

Part of it may be the desire to get this bird quilt off my desk, as it is currently just clutter. It started out with one bird print I bought several years ago to make a bag with, and then my mother gave me some bird scraps, and I thought the two birds looked pretty good together, and I went out in search of more. But I can't very well make a quilt with a bird theme without employing my own birds, can I?

So, I printed up 12 birds, and off we go: 4 dyed blue, 4 dyed yellow, 4 dyed pink... and then the wax and the over-dyeing begins.

birds
pink, yellow, and blue...

And green is blue over yellow, and orange is yellow over pink.

more birds
and purple is blue over pink...

I'm not sure I'm going to use 12 birds, I'll just pick favorites at the end. I'm trying to get up the courage to run the risk of ruining them, because I've come to realize that I've been playing it far too safe. It's just fabric, right? If four or five come out nice, that's pretty much perfect for my purposes.

You can also see in these evidence of experimentation with a tjanting - my new exciting acquisition. I'm not entirely clear on how best to use it, and how to set it down without spilling wax all over, either, but it's neat, nevertheless. Fine lines! Whoo!

And here's a few more pictures - without birds - shibori style dyeing:

pink kumo shibori
kumo (spiderweb) tying comparison: the left side is 8/4 cotton, the center one is thread.

kara matsu and mokume
tangerine and pink - mokume and kara matsu

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