Obsessed!

I live in a very small house.  When something is not in use, it gets stowed away.   Once I got out all the gear for dying, I can't stop until I am done!  No dawdling about it.  For the last week, I have done some sort of task related to dying every day.  These photos show some of what I have accomplished.  I dyed several 6 step gradations.  I have been starting with dye and fabric, after 10 minutes add soda ash, then another piece of fabric, and so on, so that it gets lighter as you add fabric. 

 Some of them don't have as much variance as I would like to see.  The next batch I will try mixing the dye for each step.  More work, but if I get better results...These are all fat eighths.  Mixing each stage, I will do larger pieces of fabric.

 this piece started out as a light peach color.  I stitched the circles, then dyed it in red dye.  I dipped the stitched portion then submerged the fabric with the stitched part sticking out.  The center circles has the most definition,

 This piece started out yellow.  I had bound some stones before dying, but it really didn't show on the yellow, so I bound it with rubber bands and dyed it in orange.  What is weird is that the original bindings show better now!

 Small stones bound with rubber bands.  I like this, but I wish I had dyed it first.  Try again...

 Pole wrapped shibori.

 This piece was yellow, bound with rubber bands, then dyed in red and fushia, bound with rubber bands again.

Another piece of pole wrapped shibori.  I also dyed some scarves with this batch, but took no photos.  Nothing terribly extraordinary.  Now it is time to take todays work out of the drier and see what I got!

Yesterday

I did my first dying of the summer, yesterday. I posted some pics of the scarves tha Olivia and I dyed yesterday, but I managed to be patient enough with my cotton to wait until morning to rinse everything out. I was so anxious to get started that I began as soon as I got out of bed. I got caught in my jammies, hair not combed, and very colorful hands, by some old friends who are visiting Kodiak.



My Northern Lights piece.  this piece was stitched.  I used to thick of thread which left thread marks which could have been avoided with thinner thread.  I think.  I had alot of trouble removing the thread from a wet piece of fabric.  Perhaps on the next stitched pieces I should dry it before I try removing the thread.  I ended up with some small hole that, although they are unfortunate, won't matter because the piece will be cut up.

Pole wrapped shibori.  Water...






 

I used aquarium stones and baby rubberband to bind this piece.  I tried to stitch the stem and leaves but that does not show up very well.

This is another stitched piece.  It didn't turn out as I had expected but I like it alot.

Pole and rope wrapped shibori.  More water...

And more water...






 

I came home from work and mixed up dye for tomorrow.  I am going to dye a 12 step colorwheel gradation.  I learned last year that if you want them all to turn out similar, you need to use the same size of container.  I had a friend in a restaurant save 1/2 gal sour cream containers for me and I found some pitchers at Walmart, so i am set.  I want my gradation to have the same mottled appearance.  I want to dye yards of fabric so I had to mix up lots of dye.  Had a near disaster.  I bought a cheap blender to mix my dyes.  Even though I had it in a washtub, I made a big mess.  For some reason turquoise foams up alot in the blender.  I had turquoise dye all over the place-including my new shirt that I wasn't smart enough to change when I came home!  But, I got the shirt sprayed and into the wash right away so it is fine, and the dye was cleaned up before Nick got home.  He would not have been happy!

I have been having trouble with Blogger tonight-doesn't want to upload photos, and stuff keeps disappearing, then when I preview, its is there more than once.  I need my bed....

Dye Day

Prayer Flags for Ron.  My friend Ron had a stroke last week so I made these flags for him.  Truxton and Olivia graciously offered to hold them up so I could take a photo.  I will send them to Anchorage with friends that are going to visit.

 I spent the day today with my son, Nick's, kids-Truxton, Olivia and Braelyn.  We started the day previewing the movie, Winnie the Pooh, at the theater AI manage.  When we returned to my house, Braelyn took a nap, and the older kids wer busily occupied so I got out the dye I mixed up yesterday, and all of the poles that I wrapped some time ago- you can see here: http://sallysartquilts.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-i-have-been-doing.html
 Most of it I am leaving to cure overnight but I couldn't wait, and rinsed out three scarves.



 Olivia did this one for her Grandma Darlene.

 This is hers, too.  I really like the lighter blue sections.

This is one that I did.  I bound stones and tied them off with little rubber bands.   This one is not destined to remain a scarf since I was impatient removing the rubber bands and accidently cut the scarf a tiny bit.  Now I will cut it up and find a creative use for it.  Stay tuned-tomorrow I will post pics of my water and northern lights shibori.  Better turn out really cool since I have hours into the preparation for dying!

What I Have Been Doing

I haven't posted for a few days, but I have not been idle.  I read somewhere that you should rub your poles with steel wool then apply floor wax to them to make it easier to push down the fabric.  I couldn't find floor wax, so I used car wax instead and it made a huge difference.  Hopefully wax is wax and it won't react with the dye.  I have four poles ready to go.  About 10 more to wrap.  These are Hoffman PFD fabric, and I am going to do some with Kaufman Pimatex also.