Saturday, August 14, 2010

dying for cloth

Basic black goes with everything!!




I see a forest and a moody night sky.....what do you see?


I'm thinking whole cloth for the turquoise one and I'm not sure what for the black/fushia. Lot's of potential though! Any suggestions?





I'm not showing you my yellow cloth, because it's just too pale. I was trying to mix yellow and black to make green, but all I got was a faint greenish yellow. The yellow MX was obviously not strong enough, so back into the dye pot it will go in a couple of weeks.

All three pieces were spaced dyed in jars and left on the balcony for a couple of days. Recycled cotton fabric was used, courtesy of an old sheet I found in the thrift store.

My friends are all playing with natural dying, but I think that I'll stick to the chemicals for now. How long do you suppose it will take for me to start pulling shirts out of the closet? I bet that some of the old cotton ones could use a little lift!

11 comments:

Magpie's Mumblings said...

Nice! Dyeing isn't something I've gotten in to, other than playing around with rust. Your experiments are great.

kaiteM said...

first one: there's a storm brewing;
second: definately whole cloth;
third: try ripping it up into strips and weaving with it, even using another dyed fabric for the cross weave strips.
they're all good...k.

Anne Marie - Toronto said...

Thanks you two! Kaite, weaving for the third piece is a great idea.....now all I need to do is dye more fabric for the other strips. Perhaps the weaving will be a winter project. LOL! Hard to think of winter now, it's so hot and muggy out her today.

MA, you'll enjoy the dyeing if and when you get into it.

Karen S said...

I like chemicals too -- the natural dyes are pretty, but I require the intense colors that you just can't get from nature. I do like that top piece -- a winter forest storm scene?

arlee said...

beauteous! the bottom one makes me think of flowers caught under ice

Penny Berens said...

Dyeing no matter which method, is fun and addictive. With either one you can make your work more personal I feel. For me cloth dyed chemically naturally dyes don't mix well together though. The one overpowers the other. Your results are great...love black and white.

Jan said...

I love dyeing with the procion dyes and I collect old sheets at garage sales for this purpose. They have no sizing and are so soft. Your pieces turned out wonderfully, you will surely find a great use for them.

grace Forrest~Maestas said...

hey anne marie, i very much like the basic
black. i accidentally got a very small piece
of muslin mottled black just from forgetting
it in a cast iron pot long after all water
evaporated...it is my favorite fragment and
i watch it everyday wondering what it will
end up doing.
thanks for coming by windthread... grace

fabriquefantastique said...

I've always wanted to dye....and am having a great time with blogs I have found...yours included.

Monica said...

gorgeous. i wish you'd shown the yellow one. it's all interesting, the process, the 'mistakes'....
my fave is the black.

Unknown said...

I see a wrinkled aged man in the top left, a dia de los muertos face next to him and at the top right there is something trying to burst through the cloth. Perhaps they are a part of the 'cloud of witnesses' standing over the forest at the bottom.