Fizzy Fat Quarters

I returned to the studio last night and started rummaging through all the wonderful commercial cottons I was recently gifted with. My intention for these fabrics is to transform them any way I can. These two fat quarters have been discharged and then hand painted with textile paint with some iridescent powder mixed in for sparks. They've been heat set and I don't really want to see if they are wash fast since my intention is to use them only for Art pieces that will never be washed or dried. The base fabrics are all excellent quality cotton that you will probably recognize if you look hard enough. As these accumulate and strike my fancy (or not) I will start moving them over to Like Hotcakes! where they will be for sale.

Juicy bits

Okay - here's what excites me about dyeing my own fabric. This black is just like most black horses - from a distance they look inky. Step up close to pat a flank and you discover that their color is more likely a layer of dark brown, rusts, with black dusted over the top. In this instance, iridescent paint too. Behind that one is one of the two rusted pieces that came out so well. The teal damask has an overlay of iridescence too.Impossible to photograph but still gorgeous.

Then again there's a fool at every party!

Personal Archeology

I'm worn out and not entirely thrilled. It's a real mixed bag of results. Some of the things that I already know won't suit the work I have in mind are posted for sale on my Like Hotcakes blog. The second day of hand dyeing is all about the hard work - the serious cleanup, the rinsing, washing, drying, ironing, measuring, documenting....yada yada, on and on. There are a few jewels still rumbling around in the dryer waiting to pick up my spirits later on. While I was rooting around in one of my directories looking for old hand dye images to delete, I found this one from early 2006. The imagery got me thinking about the work that I want to be doing. I have no idea what became of the fabric. Hacked up into something no doubt.

done but not done

Just couldn't resist washing out just one to see what all the fuss was about. Do you think that she thinks she is sleeping by the fireplace? I am rubberlegged! I ran out of soda ash and personal energy before I ran out of fabric to dye and color, so now I rest and I'll live to dye another day. Arrrr! Madame Karma expresses her opinion of my tablemopper - I always dedicate one clean yard of fabric to general and ongoing cleanup during a dye session. Interesting things usually happen.

Snow Storm?

This is only a small portion of the snowstorm of fabric hanging around waiting for dye. It's been soaking in soda ash solution since last week and I was getting a little nervous about it dissolving or something so I'm drying it out to use as the mood strikes me. It had better strike sometime today - this is the first real sun we've had in a while and the weather whiner portends crapola by the weekend. I saw my first hummingbirds this morning. One took a sip at the upstairs feeder, turned to look at me and SPAT..I'm cooking a new batch right now. Apologies from the chef. Here's one small piece brewing. Note the pollen everywhere. It's all over the wet fabric and I know it will wash out but wonder if it will create a resist in any way. I am among the fortunate few who have no idea what pollen allergies are all about. I blow the stuff off my dashboard with abandon. Everyone I know suffers somehow. Even one of my cats is blinking his weepy eyes. Alien blood will tell.