Marbled Fabric Quilt

I started a new quilt this week using some fabrics I marbled in 2013. If you have never experienced marbling fabric, I highly recommend it. It is a magical experience! When I was teaching art at the middle school, I loved seeing the students' reactions as they lifted their papers off of the marbling tub and flipped them over to see the beautiful designs they had created. They used the marbled papers to line the inside covers of small books they created. The outside covers of their books were hand stamped from blocks they carved and inked up.

Marbled Fabrics

Here's pictures of some of the better marbled pieces I made.

Marbling Fabric Again

I bought the Marbling DVD by Jo Fitsell, http://www.jofitsell.com/ which is very informative and had a more successful marbling session Tuesday. The major differerence between this session and my prior ones was using the Golden acryllics as recommended by Fitsell. They have a higher pigment content and once diluted with water, float well on the carrageenan surface.  I also let the carrageenan sit overnight and did the drying and washing as Fitsell recommends in her DVD.  Here are some in process photos.

Here is a piece just printed and placed on newspaper.

Here's another.

Here's the bath of floating concentric circles ready

 for the fabric to be laid on top to capture the print.

Here is the resulting print.

Fabrics need to sit flat and dry for at least 24 hours before getting washed out gently by hand.  Here they are drying after their bath.  Hope to get them ironed and post more photos soon.

Marbling Fabric

Yesterday, I marbled some fabric.  I've marbled paper with my middle school students using different supplies and methods than what I used for doing the fabric, so it was definitely a new learning experience.  For the paints to stick to the fabric, it must first be soaked in an alum bath for up to 20 minutes, then allowed to dry naturally, so I did that first.  Then I prepared the methyl cellulose sizing, which is a thickened surface to which you apply the thinned out paint.  With my students, I had always used carrageenan, which I'm going to use the next time I do marbling.  I just like how much easier it thickens up, and you don't have to use ammonia, which is just too toxic for me.

 Here is a great post from someone who took a class taught by Elin Noble, a fabulous artist, http://www.elinnoble.com/Elin_Noble/HOME.html  where all the steps are explained very well http://fileunderfiber.blogspot.com/2010/01/making-marvelous-marbled-fabric.html   Both Dharma and Prochem also have great information on their websites and of course there's some great books out there.  I'm dying to get Jo Fitsell's DVD but my budget is pretty tight right now.  She had a great article in August/September 2011 Quilting Arts issue.  Check out her  website too for some great examples http://www.jofitsell.com/  So here are some pics of my better ones.

 Below is a detail