Anticipation

I leave in a week for my trip to Nancy Crow's workshop.  I'm completely excited and freaked out at the same time!  I still have many more yards of fabric to dye as I realize I'm short on greens and purples.  At least I'm getting some nice earth tones this time.  The studio is a mess because everything has been moved out of our living room in preparation for our upcoming renovation (which starts on Monday!!).  

To calm myself, in the evenings I've been piecing nine patches for a few baby quilts I'd like to whip out.  I love the process of mindlessly sewing nine squares together to make a nine-patch.  I think it's my favorite block because it's so versatile and it serves as the basis for many other blocks.  These retro prints are perfect for a baby quilt.  I love how you don't even have to know the gender of the baby to make a fitting quilt.

I made my reservation for a place to stay while I'm at the workshop today.  I had reservations at a hotel already, but I remember from last year that my experience was not the greatest.  The place was perfectly acceptable, and the price was reasonable, but the hotel was part of a chain and it lacked charm.  It was also a 25 minute drive from Nancy's and located in the middle of urban sprawl.  I'm thrilled that I was able to switch my reservation to this place, The Baltimore House, a B&B located 6 minutes from Nancy's!  Yippee!  The place looks wonderful; they serve breakfast, they have a room with a Parisian theme, beautiful landscaping...they even have pets!  I know I'll feel right at home.  I'm especially excited to have the opportunity to take a jog and not breathe in polluted air from congested roadways.  I'm sure I'll post more about this lovely place later.  

I just have to tell you that when I made my reservation the lady asked why I was coming.  I'm sure to anybody it may seem odd that I'll be traveling from Maui to "vacation" in a rural place in the Midwest.  I told her about Nancy Crow and she replied that she had never heard of her!  I was stunned!  How could this be??  It still freaks me out when I meet someone in that area that has never heard of her.  Nancy must not get out much.  I'll have to tell her!

Virtual quiltmaking

Again, finding myself with little studio time, I'm forced to compose on the computer.  This time I started with this quiltlet:

Using Adobe Illustrator, I came up with these:

These took me about 15 minutes to complete.  I'm trying to work through my desire to work in a column format. I like the middle one the best.  I feel as if now I can get on with my day!

Very cool picture!

Also, for those of you who aren't familiar with Illustrator, it's Adobe illustrator and can be found here.

I'll be attending another Nancy Crow class in a few weeks and getting ready for it involves assembling lots of fabric.  So I've spent the last few days going through ALL my fabric, sorting, refolding, and tossing out the ones I know I'll never use.   Here is a shot of my hand-dyed fabrics.   I like having one place for all these where I can just look at a glance to see what I have.  I'll spend the next week sorting the pieces I want to take to the workshop by value and dyeing more fabric to fill the gaps.  The contractor starts construction on Thursday so I figure it's around that time I'll no longer have my washer and dryer... better get busy!

This and that

I found these two pictures on FFFFOUND and just had to share them.  The first one is a crocheted tree!  This is real!  Someone must really love to crochet (and climb trees)!

The next picture I saved because I just love the use of line here.  It's almost all line!  Very cool!

Flat Dyeing

In the work I do, I like to use solid color assembled into shapes and patterns. From start to finish I want to have as much to do with the art as I can. I believe it has to come from my hand to be authentic. So I dye my own fabric. In the past, I've used buckets and baggies, yet many times I had results that appeared mottled despite agitating the heck out of it and/or using my hand-dandy wonder washer. I would often leave a day of dyeing physically exhausted and mentally disappointed.

What I'm really after is a nice even coverage of color with minor variations so as to give hint that this fabric is not commercially purchased. I was able to achieve that this week! Here is a piece of red fabric that came out even, smooth and vibrant. The color is intense and it only took one try!

How did I do it? I started by analyzing every aspect of my dyeing process thinking about the chemical reaction that is involved and how well/poorly my method matched up. I realized my problem rested in the fact that I did not give as much attention to the curing process as I should, and by bunching up my fabric in buckets or baggies, I was actually making it impossible to achieve the smooth results I wanted. Some of you have asked, so here is my current method of dyeing fabric.

Start with a (hot) sunny day:

In my back yard, I have a folding table set up that I've topped with an old cutting mat I had stored away:

My fabric is soaked in a soda ask solution and spun out in my washing machine:

From the hardware store, I purchased plastic drip cloths used by painters and cut them up into pieces just larger than a one-yard piece of fabric. I was sure to get the heaviest weight plastic I could find. I wanted the weight and durability.

After laying the fabric on the table:

I pour my mixed dye solution directly on it. 400 to 600 ml works fine:

I then cover it with a sheet of plastic and smooth out the bubbles:

I use small clamps to hold the plastic down in trade-wind weather:

More layers are put down, one by one:

As long as my plastic sheets have no holes in them, I don't worry about layering different colors on top of each other. My table is also set at a slight angle so any excess dye travels downhill. This sits in the sun for a day:

After the fabric is done and thrown in the washer, the plastic is rinsed and hung on a clothesline to dry.

As you can see the results are smooth, even, uniform and intense. Dyeing this way means less dye is lost down the drain during the rinse out. I've had to cut back on the amount of dye powder I use.

Here on the left is a recent batch of a black to grey gradation. Notice how even the color appears and how heavily weighted towards black it is. In the future, I'll know to dilute the mixture more so subtle grays can be achieved. On the right is last year's results from a batch I did using buckets. Notice the mottling and unevenness of color. I'm much happier now that I've discovered this. It makes me feel good that I've figured this out.

I woke up this morning and just had to do this on Illustrator:

I couldn't start my day without getting this out of my head:

Success!

I'm thrilled to report I got really good results from my last round of dyeing.  In fact this method is so effective that I have to rethink my dyeing process.  With tub dyeing, I use more dye than they say because I want to produce rich saturated colors.  Using the same recipe and pouring the dye on the fabric and allowing it to cure, not only saturates the fabric with dye, but it also leaves very little dye in the washout.  

The fabrics below are grouped how they were layered under sheets of plastic.  I have two oranges because one of those fabrics was not white when I started out.  The other was mauve and I was hoping the orange dye would "tweak" the mauve towards orange but instead, as you can see, the orange ruled!  This happened because my dye solution was too strong.  Still, I'm VERY HAPPY with how even the color took and how rich the fabric looks.  I especially love the Reds!

Yesterday, I mixed many batches of dye but used only a few because the weather did not cooperate. I'm very sure now that the temperature has lots to do with how well the dye takes to the fabric.  I focused on pale blue colors:

My house is looking spare as we are moving furniture to prepare for the remodel.  All the flooring is getting replaced.  To brighten things up a little we made our own prayer flag banner out of fabric scraps!

Dyeing Day #2s

From yesterday's dyeing session, I'm keeping this:

The rest got overdyed today.  I love the look of really saturated fabric in colors that don't look like they came straight out of the jar.  I can spot a procion Lemon yellow, or Chartreuse in an instant.  I'm more interested in the colors achieved when colors are mixed.  I used Paula Burch's   tips on color mixing as a reference.  I'd like to say I keep detailed records of what I'm using, but truth be told, I'm winging it, depending instead on training my eye to evaluate the color of the liquid dye.  

Remembering a conversation I once had with Caryl Bryer Fallert, I decided to try a different method today.  I laid the fabric out on a giant surface, poured the dye over it, and covered it completely with painter's drip sheets when done.  I must have 17 yards of fabric layered here.  This has been sitting in the hot sun all day and tomorrow is the wash out!  I'll tell you more about why I chose to do it this way when I show you the results!

it doesn't get much better than this...

I spent the day dyeing fabric.  My goal is 150 yards by the end of the month.  One of my favorite colors, marigold:

Watching the dye cure...

Ahhh, all those buckets roasting in the sun...

The dog watched while my DH carved the chicken:

I stepped outside to see what looks like the back yard of an Amish dry goods store.  Such a peaceful day.

SHIBORI PAPERWEIGHT

I've made another paperweight utilizing my Shibori fabric.  This one is pretty cool because of the linear design of the Shibori as well as the hand quilted stitch outlining it.  This paperweight measures 4 1/4" square by 1" and it weighs a little under a pound.  You may be interested to know that I used lava rock tiles on the inside!

SHIBORI PAPERWEIGHT

SOLD!!

Dyeing lately

I've been doing a little dyeing lately, this time to make a background piece for Dianna.  It took me several tries but I finally produced a variety I was able to show her.  This is silk charmeuse and MX dyes take to it differently than cotton.  I'm learning that protein fibers and cellulose fibers behave differently with different dyes.  Someday I hope to have all this info available just off the top of my head, but for now it's trial and error mixed with lots of research.  Just about now I really wish I paid more attention in chemistry class!

Looking at this piece, picture the background for a bamboo forest.  When Dianna gets finished, I'll ask to post a picture of it on this blog.  That little blue swirl in the lower right-hand corner turned the fabric to a darker shade of green.  It's the only part of the final product that bothers me.  Should have massaged it out.....oh well.

Do you want to see some fabulous Shibori pieces?  Just visit Marcia's site!  Mmmmmm!

Shibori paperwieght

I'm so excited to be creating again!  I made this paperweight using fabric I dyed in my Shibori class.  It measures 4 1/4" square by 1".  It weighs just under a pound; heavy enough to keep those piles of papers from flying away!  I plan on making many more to sell and for gifts for the teachers.  This one is for sale, just click on the paypal button below!

Shibori paperweight

4.25" x 4.25" x 1"

SOLD 

Don Tiiller

Cousin Barbara just pointed out an artist that is new to me and I think his stuff is totally cool!  This is the work of Don Tiller.  

His graphic representations of landscapes and cityscapes appeal to me in that his use of line and repetition create balanced and interesting compositions.  I love the way he contrasts color so as to highlight lines that ONLY HIS HAND COULD CREATE.  He has a predominately warm palate, yet he seems to be able to balance it with cool and neutral tones without seeming overly "rainbow-ish."   This is a person who lives in the pacific northwest, but I could see him doing work here on Maui as we still have large areas of land dedicated to agriculture.  Yeah, he does cool stuff!  Great work Don!

Some Shibori pictures

Using this book as a textbook, we briefly went over the various types of shibori and the meanings behind the words used to name them.  Before I had thought of this book as too beautiful to actually take into the dyeing room with me in fear that it would get marked up or damaged, but now I think differently.  Yoshiko Wada said something very smart in class that struck me, she said to use the book as a textbook ..."'other wise why have it?"  

Here is an example of ne-maki shibori, or literally, base-wound shibori.  The way it's done is a portion of the cloth is pinched up and thread is wound around the base of the pinched fabric.  It took me a while to learn the special Kamosage knot used to secure the thread, but after many demonstrations and practice I was a pro!  

After playing around, I decided to get organized about this so I dyed different pieces of sample fabric from Tai Silk.  I wrote on each piece the type of fabric in black ink and will keep these samples in my journal.

I then moved on to colored fabric, curious to see what the blue dye would do to various colors.  The results were exciting!

Nothing boring around here

I'm too aware that I haven't ironed out my shibori pieces.  My cat has made a nest on them in the studio.  Grrrr!  I won't get too into details, just know the contractor called with a start date!!!!  So we are clearing out...

Of course the garage needed painting because in just a few weeks it will be our makeshift kitchen.  See what happens when you put the girls in charge of painting?  We just had to add a little artistic touch:

My son found this sparrow that I swear has a hollow leg!  Cute and demanding, meet Sanchez:Ahhh, something fiber-related.  I'm working on a little dyeing, trying to get the color just right:I moved the sink closer to our walkway.  I highly recommend scouring the penny-saver.  I found this sink at a fast food restaurant makeover and got it for a bargain!  It will be our makeshift sink for the remodel.  Such a good investment!

More on the shibori class

Today was a fun day in Shibori class.  The power went out about half way through, but who needs power to dye fabric?  I dyed many pieces of fabric including a lovely pole-wrapped piece which I'll show you later.  Delving into this world of Shibori, I'm starting to think to myself, where have I been?  Yoshiko's books I had, it's this little gem I never knew about:

Shibori-girl posted a comment to my last post and looking at her blog and website I feel like I'm discovering a hidden gem!

Last night I watched this video.  It's a well done piece on the origins of shibori in Japan and gives insight into how it's done.

I got to model a lovely jacket that I'm sure was developed by a top designer.  Yoshiko has such good connections!

The samples she brought with her were awesome!  Good thing TSA doesn't know too much about sophisticated fabric!

The end of Yoshiko's stay with us.  Here we are showing off our creations:

Ms. Wada herself!  How can such a world authority and massive spirit come in such a small package?!!  I feel honored and blessed to have taken a class from her.

Note to self: time to trim those bangs!

If I sound like a young girl in love, perhaps I am just a little smitten by all this shibori stuff.  I've done it before, taking direction from Yoshiko's books and testing it with MX dyes, but I gotta tell ya, doing it with indigo dye and being led by a master is completely different.   I love the look and smell of the dye, I love how easy it is to use, and I love how one has to be calm and almost reverent when using it, so as not to introduce air into the mix.  Using MX dyes is a much more active process with the constant agitation and rinsing.  There are other differences too but this one stuck out the most.  Who knows where this will take me.  For now I have one more day of class left and many more pictures to take.  Thanks for keeping up!

Some pictures from yesterday's class

Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada:

The indigo dye bath:

Samples:

Shibori Class

A few weeks ago I was given the best piece of advice I've had in a long time.  I was talking to an artist friend, telling her I wasn't sure which way the wind was going to blow with my art and all,  and she proceeded to tell me about this shibori class she heard of being taught locally and suggested I take it.  Of course I considered this class, being familiar with Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada's reputation and work, but in the spirit of trying to simplify my life, I originally passed on this opportunity.  My friend spoke with such conviction that suddenly my own little voice started to shout "See I told you!  Take the class!"  I was the last one to register for the class, and suddenly,  somehow, my schedule cleared.  It was meant to be.  Today was our first day with her and I'm thanking my lucky stars to attend.  Yoshiko is a Master at what she teaches and she is a delightful person to boot!  Going into the class, I had thought she would be a stickler for traditional ways, but I've found this not to be the case.  She is teaching us a foundation of knowledge with which we can launch our exploration of shibori methods.  I get the feeling that in Japan shibori is a dyeing art and Yoshiko is doing what she can to revive this 400 year old art form.  

Ugh!  I really wanted to show you some pictures, but blogger isn't cooperating and it's late.  Hopefully I'll be able t show you something tomorrow.