New Arashi Shibori Fabrics

Made some new Arashi Sibori fabrics this weekend. Hadn't done any arashi shibori in way too long. It's relatively quick and you usually get some nice results. 

 The one above and two below were created to capture the look of fire.

The shibori below was done on a previously eco-dyed piece that hadn't turned out very well. 

I really like the interaction of the rusty eco stains with the turquoise.

The fabric below was a commercial print that I had over-dyed once

 and it needed some more color and texture.

Soy wax, ice dyed scarf, Embroidery and Barn Update

Here are some pics of projects I've been working on.

This is a silk scarf on which I used soy wax batik and ice dye techniques. 

The colors on the silk vary according to how the light hits them.

Above is a closeup, below is the whole scarf.

Two more close-ups are below.

For my Take A Stitch Tuesday facebook group I did a satin stitch butterfly which was fun but took longer than I thought it would.

Over the weekend, mu husband finished the interior north wall of the barn. What a difference.

Low Immersion and Ice-dyed Shirts and Scarves

I recently bought the Ann Johnston  "Design by Accident" DVD, which is very good. I've had the book by the same title forever and didn't think I needed the DVD, but am very glad I bought it. There is so much more in the DVDs about her techniques.

The shirt above and below are ice dyed.  There are some great You Tube videos by a guy named Crispy who has some good ideas for getting rich color and  symmetrical designs on shirts. On the one above, I used Lemon Yellow, Emerald Green, Chinese Red, Grape, and Cerulean blue.  Ater most of the dye melted, I flipped it over and added the following dyes, on top of ice to the flip side: Lemon Yellow, Emerald Green, Turquoise, Light Red, Orchid and Plum. (These are all Dharma Dyes)

On this shirt for side one, I used Chinese Red, Black, Turquoise, and Yellow. One the flip side, Yellow, Cayman Isle, Light Red, and Black.

On this scarf I used Lemon Yellow, Blue Green, Turquoise, Plum, Emerald and Dark Green. It was a very thin silk and a lot of the first dyes didn't stick. So I over-dyed it with Blue, Blue Green, Yellow and Light Red.

On this one I stretched it out on plastic and used pretty strong liquid procion dyes, 

sometimes rubbing in with my finger or a spoon. 

More Soy Wax Batik with Ice Dyeing

Here are are some more pieces I started last weekend and finished yesterday.

 This shirt first came out as in the picture below. I wanted more color, so re-dyed it 

and above is the final version.

Below is a shirt I did for my husband.

 He must like it because he's wearing it as I write.

In this cotton piece, I combined calligraphy with soy wax batik. Just a first try, 

but will definitely come back for more practice.

In the silk scar below I used a foam brush, like in the piece above, 

to create the stem and then dipped a cake server into wax for the leaves.

This is an over-dyed piece. I like it except for a few of the very dark little 'blobs.'  I may try to do a little bleach or decolorant to lighten them. I'm not sure if you can use bleach on silk however. More research needed.

Soy Wax Ice Dyeing Revisited

Had a great time over the weekend creating some soy-waxed, ice-dyed fabric.  It was the first time in ten months, I felt well enough physically to do it, since my back problems and back surgery. Believe it or not, there is a lot of bending, lifting, carrying, etc. involved in the process. Anyway, I had a ball!

This was a piece I over-dyed. Here it is after applying the soy wax.

Here's my table all set up, ready for Ice and Dyes, 

after doing some dye planning.

Here is the over-dyed piece, shown in the top photo. I used grape and black on it.

After soy waxing, I used Bronze, Lemon yellow and Powerberry dyes.

This was also an over-dyed piece. It was light pink in places and mostly white. 

 I batiked it and used Chartreuse, Turquoise, Palomino Gold and Powerberry.

This was another over-dyed piece. It was originally dull green with some rust. I batiked it and used Cobalt and Pro-chem Rust Brown.

I used a wooden, carved block made for batiking on this but the design did not come out at all. I think too much wax got into the recessed areas when I dipped it. I used Cayman Isle, Turquoise, Rust Brown and Grape dyes.  

After batiking this piece, I used Pomegranate, Turquoise, Grape and a little Emerald.

Almond Country Quilt Display at Atascadero Library and Buttonhole Wheel Stitch

Last Thursday, at the Atascadero library there was an art reception for the Almond Country Quilt Guild's display of art quilts.  It was a fun event. The quilts were displayed with poems. At the reception, the artists spoke about their quilt, followed by the poet reading their poem. 

The poems were written independent of the quilts. In some instances the poem had a relation to the quilt, but usually not. If you are a local, be sure to check out the exhibit

 which will be up through the month of May.

I'm still trying to do a new embroidery stitch each week as part of the Facebook TAST group.  This week the stitch was the buttonhole wheel. I used two different colors, two strands of each. 

Tie-dyed Easter Eggs and Dick and Jane Quilt

It's been another busy, fun week. I have always enjoyed  dyeing Easter eggs since I was a little girl. I just have to make some every year. This year I made them using paper towels with food coloring and a little bit of water and vinegar in a spray bottle.

I like how you can see the texture left from the paper towels.

My friend, Isolde, is making a quilt for a friend's daughter who just had a baby. Knowing the same family, I offered to quilt it for her.  She did a great job of choosing fabrics and a pattern to really highlight the Dick and Jane blocks.  I decided to free motion quilt around the figures to emphasize them and then did machine quilting in the ditch in all the other seams.