Does anyone else out there every spend the whole night dreaming through the details and possibilities of a new design or technique? The busy box corner of my brain was running on high test the other night to the point where I was still thinking things through when I woke up and wrote it all down in my poor mutilated Moleskine (I left it out in the rain the other day).
Browsing through
Melissa's blog on dyeing, I was intrigued with the way she used those polished black
river rocks to weigh the fabric down into the dye. Combine this image with a rerun of Ken Burns "
the Civil War" running on the TV all night and I decided (in my sleep of course) that polished river rocks would make a good dye resist if something soft was place under the fabric to be dyed.
Jim stopped at Garden ridge on his way home from work and bought me a selection of stones so today I broke out the dyebox for a trial run of my technique.
I folded a large piece of flannel and a large piece of cotton broadcloth (that are usually extra padding on my ironing board) to act as a soft mat but the fabric that I used with the rocks turned out to be a blend that didn't take the dye! It was a
mess BUT the flannel & broadcloth soaked up dye like crazy....I discharged them with Cascade in the same crazed mola moves I used for
Mopery and I am just thrilled with the results...sometimes dreams do pay off in a cockeyed way.
The flannel is at the top of this post and here's the broadcloth which was actually two pieces seamed together.
Does anyone else out there every spend the whole night dreaming through the details and possibilities of a new design or technique? The busy box corner of my brain was running on high test the other night to the point where I was still thinking things through when I woke up and wrote it all down in my poor mutilated Moleskine (I left it out in the rain the other day).
Browsing through Melissa's blog on dyeing, I was intrigued with the way she used those polished black river rocks to weigh the fabric down into the dye. Combine this image with a rerun of Ken Burns "the Civil War" running on the TV all night and I decided (in my sleep of course) that polished river rocks would make a good dye resist if something soft was place under the fabric to be dyed.
Jim stopped at Garden ridge on his way home from work and bought me a selection of stones so today I broke out the dyebox for a trial run of my technique.
I folded a large piece of flannel and a large piece of cotton broadcloth (that are usually extra padding on my ironing board) to act as a soft mat but the fabric that I used with the rocks turned out to be a blend that didn't take the dye! It was a mess BUT the flannel & broadcloth soaked up dye like crazy....I discharged them with Cascade in the same crazed mola moves I used for Mopery and I am just thrilled with the results...sometimes dreams do pay off in a cockeyed way.
The flannel is at the top of this post and here's the broadcloth which was actually two pieces seamed together.
2 comments:
I love the marks you make. Flannel has such a marvelously rich texture ... especially after it's dyed.
I know well that "idea overdrive" you mentioned. That was me on Friday night -- then when the experiment didn't work on Saturday I wanted to throw it at the nearest wall! :) Win a few, lose a few. So glad *yours* worked!
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