Another day with the dyes

Dyeing days - Part III.  

Friends 'making a mess at my place'.  Lots of shibori and Procion 

dyeing going on. Homework done, stitched pieces ready 

to go.  Gorgeous day - dye pots set out for action. 

There was plenty of that, plus a bit of tray dyeing, screen 

printing, and anything else that came to mind.   We had a blast.

Come mid day, the weather being absolutely perfect, 

an indigo vat prepared.  

Hilary, these prints look gorgeous.

At the end of the day, vat still productive, Mr. R. even felt 

the need to refresh his wardrobe.

Mr. R  and I are now going to throw some cloths in suitcases,

and tomorrow fly off to Athens.  Early morning ferry to Naxos,

and relax.   Which is good - my hands (and feet) are somewhat

splattered with dye, so I will come back refreshed and cleansed!

Take ninety squares of fabric

Add thirty children, around about age 6.

Divide the group into two.  Dye up the

squares.   Pleating, flag folding and

scruching.     Have cup of tea.

the washing

the ironing

Another day in the Marquee at Walford Mill.  It must be summer.  

As part of a local School visit - sixty children in all, working 

with artists.  Other activities included making a self portrait 

wooden figure, and papier mache bird heads.   These looked 

pretty amazing laid out on the grass, drying and then to be painted.

My next task is to make all the little flags into bunting.

Indigo

What a fabulous weekend - students stitched, clamped,

and pole wrapped on Saturday.  The weather was not as

warm as I would have liked - buckets of indigo wrapped

in newspaper to maintain the warmth.    On Sunday, with vats

ready, they were up and at it, producing swathes of blue

cloth.   So gorgeous I could happily have taken them of

the washing line and home.

When I could drag them away from the vats, we 

explored rusting fabric with ferrous sulphate, plus

colour stripping using brushes and printing blocks.

A few photos of indigo shibori produced over

the weekend.  

Clamping, plus a little piece of dyed velvet

Clamping No 2

Indigo dyed cloth with potassium permanganate.

Fabulous colour.

After washing out

Wrapped pole just doing it's own thing

Wrapped cotton and silk, and Japanese Larch stitched shibori

Only a tiny taste of cloth produced over the weekend.

Pretty impressive I think.   Never enough time to take

photos, life gets somewhat frantic around indigo vats

and enthusiastic students.  We all went home, tired

but very happy.

Ancient Story

Only a month late, the May JQ for Contemporary Quilt Group

I just had to use one of my gelatine plate 

printed pieces.  It was telling me old surfaces.

The images are screened through a flour and

water paste silk screen, scraped carefully 

with wooden kebab stick.

Catch up time

Some how I seem to be involved in making Journal Quilts with 

three different groups.   This will have to seriously be reviewed 

at the end of the year!  

Right now I have a quiet few days before total chaos next week,

three workshops, dentist, hairdressers - this will end with a flight

 to Athens, Greece, followed by a ferry to Naxos.   Ten glorious

days in the sun doing not a lot.

So, odds and ends being tidied up, old and new projects to be 

considered, and Journal Quilts to be stitched.

A good thing about JQ's they make you think, and you do get 

to try out different approaches, which, might or might not get

  used again.    Enter Flour and Water Paste - yuck - the chosen 

technique. Fortunately at Summer School Jette introduced us

to F&WP on silk screens.  Yes - see above. Result.   Still on 

a limited palette, I really must invest in more textile paints!

Quilts have holidays too

Four Journal Quilts, all stitched together - safety 

in numbers.  They are going on holiday to the 

Minerva Summer Quilt Exhibition in Llanidloes

Wales, for a whole two months.   They will join other 

friends on The Contemporary Quilt Group stand.

The question is will they sent me a postcard?

At the end of the day/week

And so launches a summer of workshops.

    Last Saturday the first of the Dyeing Days, 

    on Wednesday a trip to Devon teaching 

Indian Stitch techniques. and yesterday 

the second Dyeing Days workshop.  

Brilliant. A lovely day, great enthusiastic

 students, who took home lots of 'creative' 

washing.  Small shibori pieces and long 

lengths for scarves. 

Since it was really warm I couldn't resist 

setting up the first indigo vats of the summer. 

A surprise treat. Decisions, decisions.  

Procion or Indigo?  

Fingers crossed the weather will be kind next

weekend, I'm taking a two day Indigo workshop

which will include colour stripping and rust

dyeing.    Gosh, it is good to get the vats out!

Remains of the two buckets of indigo.

Call in the cleaners

The Gelatin Plate

I bought Rayna Gillman's book, looked at the pictures.

never got round to trying this process.  So, it was great

to find that the workshop included gelatine printing.

Such fun, very wobbly, and additive.

My plate developed a death crack immediately as it

wobbled out of the tray.  I think it had started to

break up due to sitting in the warm sun - lesson learnt.

The top half of the picture shows a perfect print from

my fellow student Lesley's perfect plate.  Below what

you can do with a death crack and then chopping the

whole mess up and printing with 'bits'

Lesley kindly gave me her still perfect plate, transported

home with care.   I played for a couple of hours printing

in slabs of colour, all very fine, but then I really started

playing and came up with these interesting surfaces.

Tomorrow I am taking the first of the Dyeing Days

workshops here.  On Sunday I plan to paint or stencil

the cloth and see what happens.   I have just remembered

I still have the slightly shabby plate in the fridge.

Better go and check it out - still useable I wonder? 

I could managed an hour this afternoon!

Summer School

A fabulous weekend - good company, too much good food, 

fantastic weather.   Our tutor's luggage ended up in Nice,

only to be delivered two hours before the end of the workshop. 

There was just enough time for Jette to show her latest 

quilts, which then made sense of all the surface marking

techniques we had been messily making over two days.

Mark making with found objects

Rubbings

Monoprinting

At last more than one colour - my silk screen

with remains of flour and water paste resist.

All together now;  lost the white background; rubbings;

black screen print with 'voids'; flour and water paste

resist; cerise and yellow print.

Learnt lots. Dealt with the bringing wrong paints. Had only

textile screen paints black, cerise, a very pale turquoise 

and yellow to work with. Since the first exercises were

restricted to one colour, it did concentrate the mind.

And then there was the gelatin plate printing. brilliant.

More on that in next post.