Spirits in the Cloth

It was a transcendent day at the dyeworks yesterday. I found the right music (thanks Vin), surrounded myself with all the tools and materials and worked the fabric directly on the table like I was working pizza dough (but not too much kneading). Some of this fabric is top shelf 400M and batiste from Testfabric, some is mongrel cotton from OHCO, some vintage damasks from strange tables in distant times. Spirits in the cloth. Now for the fun. Finding out just what went on in all those mason jars and baggies over night. These are wet so don't get excited yet about the intensity of the colors but there was almost no dye in the rinse water. A portent of good things. These were rinsed in tubs of water that stood overnight on the deck. I feel for all the generations of women who hauled the laundry down to the river to pound the clothes on rocks and rinse in the freezing streams! I'll let these drip dry for a while before I try to haul them upstairs to the washing machine. Many of these pieces are destined for further transformation through discharging and textile paints.

Dye Day Redux

I finally got a chance to get the rest of that fabric into the dyes. It was too beautiful a day to NOT be outside working on something but now I'm pooped and will save the rinse-wash-dry-iron boogie until tomorrow. Best to batch anyway.

good Motto

I wish they had sent one in my size! Colin is the only street team rep for Rhymesayers Entertainment. He gets cool freebies in the mail. The band is Atmosphere and that <- is the name of the new CD that dropped yesterday.

FIBERcrack!

The making of it anyway! After I get home from the office today I'm going to be incommunicado for a while. I forgot how much fun magik-making was. left - Worlds Away 25"x18" below - Mystic Cheerioz 17"x23"

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.