Today's Dye Crop

This one reminds me of a clock and the loud colours could be an alarm going off in the morning! I much prefer the softer shades of this, although it's not really to my colour taste, either:

And these were my wipe up cloths so no dye was wasted:

Mainly, I just wanted to try working in my old studio space which is now so much more spacious to move around in. I will need the extra room for the online Indigo Dyeing class I will be taking in a few weeks.

Food Fun

Today I tried natural dye stuff with Arashi Shibori - some rose petals, raspberry tea and onion skins. I kept seeing food in the results, too - ripple potato chips:and the icing swirls on top of a vanilla slice - must have been time for a snack!

Here's the whole, which was a light beige to begin with.

And I did a little Sekka Shibori using the Colourhue dyes.

Bare Bones

Alot can happen in a few days, and when I don't blog about it fairly promptly, my impetus to record it, fizzles, as I have moved on. Since my last entry, I have thread painted Tried Itajime shibori on wool and photo collaged it with this swan I met

Tried Mokume shibori on wool twice without getting a well defined pattern - perhaps felt's pile doesn't allow for the stitch lines to show well - or maybe there is something else I could try. I do love the look of resist dyed felt, though, and think it has alot of promise.

And here I was trying an overall shibori pattern on silk divided into six squares - three with blossoms and three with twelve lines of horizontal and vertical stitch. No clear pattern again, which was disappointing after all the stitching and knotting.

This last photo is from the Westshore Quilt Guild's show and is a machine from 1885 - love the curvy shape!

Patterns

With the arrival of spring we are moving from darker days into more light. Signs like these new baby goats are emerging

and flowers.

The seasons are patterns in nature - interconnected as they merge from one to the next.

And some patterns are more spread out - long range, like last night's super moon.

Shibori in the Grass

A shibori crocus - or at least that was my thought when this caught my eye on a walk. I am continuing to work with sequential use of the different types of dye that I have and am trying further stitch variations.

But not all of my stitches are being removed from fabric - I am leaving them in on my rabbit cloth.

Mixing it Up

Aaah, silk velvet - it just drinks in colour. I am trying Procion dye with shibori techniques, now - overdyeing this one that was first dyed with Jaquard

and this silk satin was Procion first, followed by Colourhue. Kind of weird colours emerged.

I like the pattern I got here, but it's pretty bright!

And my partner found a pile of linens for me at an estate sale - a nice surprise and there are some real beauties!

Rabbit Home

These two bunnies have been patiently waiting on a Japanese handkerchief I found at a garage sale, for me to give them a home. I was inspired to use the silks I dyed yesterday, as well as a previously dyed cotton and some silk gauze and a silk carrier rod I dyed today in a matter of minutes, thanks to the leftover Colourhue dye.

And when I was digging into the cupboard where I keep my dyes, I found a sealed set of Jaquard silk dyes that I had once found at a garage sale and forgotten about! So now I have blue and yellow, too.

This one is not shibori, but covered the bright pink solid one I dyed yesterday:

Shaping Up

My Shibori on Silk online class with Glennis Dolce has begun, now. We are using Colourhue dyes - however - I was only able to find black, scarlet and magenta locally, so I worked with what I had. These dyes are so completely easy - instant colour gratification, no chemical mixing up, no waiting, one quick rinse and no heat setting or washing!! And they are very concentrated. Too good to be true. I only wish I had more colours, but I do have other options in mind. The silks I dyed are a mix of habotai, noil and organza and I will work to improve getting the pattern throughout the fabric, as it's not consistent. In the Mark Making With Machine class, we have also been working with shapes, accentuating either the pattern or the ground with stitch.

And also experimenting with embroidery on various water soluable fabrics. While I love the visual texture created, it is hard in terms of how it feels. I did try sandwiching threads between two layers of water soluable and doing only a small bit of stitch on it, which yielded a softer result.

I've added gold thread to this heart since taking the above photo, but I think I prefer it with the open spaces. I did other samples using automatic stitch, tulle, more open space and an organic kind of grid.

Building Blocks

Have you ever noticed that when something is on your mind, you notice it everywhere? I am noticing blocks and this pattern is one I've decided to put into fabric.

Here are some of the blocks not yet attached to each other so that once I have as many as I want completed, I can play with the design. I've used a few natural dyed fabrics and some of the snow dyes from my last batch, as I chose the dye colours hoping to get a match. I'm enjoying how the softness and variety of fabrics and the ripples created as I hand baste bring a more organic feel to the geometrics - a kind of shape blending. I have lots of ideas I want to try and these blocks will be perfect because I can get the variety in that I love, yet still create a unified whole through the consistency of some of the same fabrics and the overall block pattern.

I have also been buying silks in preparation for an online Shibori silk dyeing class with Glennis Dolce in a few weeks... I periodically dabble in shibori but want to take it further and learn more.

And I got out to the opening of the 'Turning The Tide' textile art show at the Martin Batchelor Gallery put on by Victoria Grandmothers for Africa that has been touring across Canada and whose pieces will be auctioned off to raise funds for the Stephen Lewis foundation and the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign in a few weeks. Some heart warming and lovely work there!

Making the Rounds

Along with my art quilt group, I am part of a surface design round robin. This half metre of fabric is the piece I received and I decided to add some contrasting colour and more of a defined structure or pattern while still leaving space for the next participant to add to it. Here is the same fabric after shibori dyeing it:

What interested me was how different the backside was - because the original fabric was a print that doesn't carry through to it. The dye is brighter on the white backside and I usually use white or solid light fabric to dye on - not the backside of a print, but I see now that that is an option, too. So I will keep that in mind when I see yardage I'm not attracted to - how it might be transformed.

Of course, I couldn't resist throwing something else in the dye bath, too - a little silk velvet - which ended up coloured like a scarf, with creamy insides and purple edges and ends.

Also, I was out to see the Sooke Fine Arts show last weekend and saw a few studios open for touring, as well as dropped into an 'Art in the Garden' show with lovely ambience and live music, put on by several artisans in a variety of mediums.

A bit of Everything

After this morning's quilt guild meeting featuring Eileen Wright and her bargello quilts, I came home inspired to machine piece and the top photo shows what I've done so far. And yesterday I was dying to dye, so these are a few samples - more uniformly orange then what I was hoping to get, as I used yellow, orange and red, but I like the patterning. And I've started hand stitching down the waves, which turns out to be a bit tricky as the chiffon moves around even with pins. Maybe using my Pfaff would have been a better choice. I also dropped off the two quilts I have entered in this weekend's 'Quilting With The Stars' show at the Saanich Fairgrounds and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's work - there will be at least 220 quilts, other quilted items for sale and a merchant's mall.