soy & dye experiments cont.

 
I washed out those two napkins last night and then decided to discharge to see how the color "uncovered".

Lots of lessons here. To spare myself yards and hours of waste time and cloth I bought
Jane Dunnewold's book on the subject last night.


It won't arrive in time for the weekend so there will be further wandering in the dark!
"Not Moons" and more are  for sale in the store.

....DING!

ps - thanks to all who replied. I bought Jane's book last night but will keep messing about all weekend, all uninformed!


OKAY! Here's the first one all crunched up. I thought I'd get a lot of the hardened wax off it before getting into the hot water.  Hand washed it in very hot water & Dawn several times and have no intention of machine washing it.

here it is, still damp but I don't anticipate it being a whole lot lighter when it drys which is a nice characteristic of woven cottons like huck, sack cloth and damask.

I'm really tickled with the results and have lots of plans including reworking some finished quilts that have become tired in my eyes. A few things will be disappearing from my main gallery.




I was looking over a prospectus yesterday and had a horror when I realized that nothing in my gallery is less than three years old!  Something has to be done...

Even the second one, which I immediately christened "Nasty" came out very interesting.

And a big bonus.....

...the soywax+dye crumbs are everywhere and the dye seems to be still active. These are two damask table napkins wet with soda ash that I used to clean up the work table.

I'll stuff these in a jar and leave them for tomorrow.

soy & dye experiments

The dyes and soy wax that arrived yesterday kept me up thinking about them last night.
I've long wondered about mixing the dye/resist process somehow, as counter intuitive as it seems.  I know someone had written a book about it and can't find the thing - so here I am re-inventing the wheel cause I can't wait to read about someone elses discoveries..if you know the book I'm talking about please email me.

Meanwhile, I set my trusty muffin tin in a rusted frying pan of water on the side burner of the gas grill conveniently located on dye deck.

For the first one, I waited until the soy way was completely melted and stirred in a teaspoon of dye into each muffin.

It blended pretty quickly and working fast, I applied the colored wax directly to a huck towel that had been soaked in soda ash.

The backside is even interesting.  It's going to kill me to wait to wash this out but what a great excuse to get some chores done!




Below is the other half of the huck towel, also damp with soda ash. This time I spooned the dye into the muffin tin while the wax was still melting and it did not blend as well or easily with the wax.

I started out wanting some "white space" and used wax without dye (covered over now)  but it was looking so nasty that as soon as the wax cooled I rolled it up and put it in with a quart of monkey blood.

washout will be lunch-ish.

monetizing?

Have any of you fellow bloggers taking the invitation from Adsense to "monetize" your blog and, if you have, are you needing a wheelbarrow to take your money to the bank?
Somehow the term "Monetize" conjures up visions of Jesus kicking the moneylenders asses on the temple steps  or Miss Cleo taking folks' grocery money for bogus card readings and spells. Am I crazy, stupid or both?

On a happier note, the UPS man just dropped a box from ProChem on the doorstep. And me with almost no white cloth!

PS....Yeah, I've decided that monetizing sound a lot like a case of the cooties.

signs of fall

This is view right over the back edge of the pool. there are several trees even closer than this one off screen right. The shade keeps the water cool and relatively algae free right through the summer but they (and the critters that live up there) drop endless loads of crap into the water.

Since I am the daily swimmer, it falls to me to keep ahead of these Augean stables and now that the buses are rolling the signs of fall are setting in.

But today I witnessed first hand where these leaves keep coming from. I mean, do you see one single brown, yellow or sickly leaf in my woods? Not.



Right on the other side of the fence my neighbor has a towering tulip tree  and the leaves are coming off it like confetti on New Years Eve...

catchup

I was not as fully divorced from electro-doings as I wanted these past days  but  still, lots got done.

On the other hand, there's nothing like a new bed to make one think about becoming an Olympic class sleeper. You just don't how bad the old bed was until you get a new one! I wake up feeling taller each day.

Work continues on Rêver 3 but there are stronger value changes in this one and I am anticipating even more vivid ones in the future. Dreams will sometimes pass into nightmares without you noticing.

A pair of swan feathers underway...I keep telling myself "less is more"

  and finally, finally
I am tackling the construction of this large piece. Getting these very disparate types of cloth to lie down and true up is crazy pesky.

The darkest one in the foreground is vintage cotton sackcloth (thanks Rosemary), the middle part is the last of the Nantucket flea market damask tablecloths and the pale strip on the far edge  a vintage percale - a sheet from my Aunt  Jo's lodge in Flint Michigan.

These three pieces of cloth have been only been joined because of the colors I gave them. The whole process seems to be against their individual wills but I am taking the wheel with a firm hand.

Happy FRIDAY!

Even though I have to work the day job this weekend, I'm taking a break from the computer and hand stitching.
My hands will be doing bigger, different things and my eyes will look for far horizons.

And if you are a fan of the game and can tune in, don't miss the Braves game tonight. Tonight they retire #6 and honor legendary manager Bobby Cox.
It will be a very big deal

self indulgence

I just came from ProChem like a junkie from her dealer...Sunflower,  Sun Yellow,  Hot Pink,  Rosewood,  Brightest Blue,  Turquoise,  Lapis Indigo Blue,  Kiwi,  Raspberry,  Plum and some  Soy Wax.  There will be many more hot days for dyeing here in Georgia but already the daily battle of pulling brown leaves from the pool has begun. It seems to start happening the minute the school buses start prowling the neighborhoods.

Yesterday's mail came in balance...a very belated rejection from the TSGNY exhibition (freeing up my entries for other shows - Yay!) and a tiny beautifully wrapped package from Morna Crites-Moore.  I'm not a jewelry gal - been wearing the same tiny gold and diamond hoops that my family gave me for my birthday ...um, two years ago. but I've coveted these for so long and slept through the night without noticing them so it will be a long running association.

She also sent the tiny hand stitched block and as I examined it I was amazed to see that this type of block was constructed on a base - a notion that never occurred to me. I immediately grabbed up some scraps and tried it for myself. Makes me wonder what else I am missing never having educated myself in the breadth of traditional sewing techniques.

faux natural...

...is what they look like to me. The loss of color will probably delight a lot of people. Me...not so much. But here they are. You can see closeups with and without the flash.

Although a lot of people prefer to use cloth in it's natural state, I especially like to iron the damasks when the dye process is finished. You can see by this detail that the huge tablecloth I stumbled over was probably created to be a souvenir for a tourist visiting the "auld sod".  One could only hope that it was actually manufactured in Ireland!  

The rest of the lightweight cottons will have to wait, in fact, I'll have to rewash them. SOMETHING went Lint Wacko in the washer and 99% of it gravitated to the pieces below. I will NOT be sitting over these with a roll of scotch tape today.

I've taken out the few that I'm keeping and everything else will be made available in the store over the next few days.

swimming with the cloth

I laughed out loud when I ready Judy's latest post cause I had just come in from the pool and teaching some new acquaintances how to swim...


While I shot this video, Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic" was playing on the radio....YouTube took away the music but I bet you can hear it playing in your head. (You can open in another tab and play the song Here...  go figger)

fruits of the weekend

Everything is in the washing machine - drying? ironing?
Maybe tomorrow - the day job recommences today.

I think I need a mid season pallet reassessment. I threw away at least five empty dye jars and colors are missing. And I want more soywax...off to Prochem!


PS- the rate of color loss was severe. I put it down to old dyes depleted by exposure to high temps...once mixed they are supposed to be stored cool. the Lesson..mix only what will be needed for a session or follow the rule!