Sunday, April 27, 2008

Nuts over netting

I was in the mood to play yesterday, and wanted to do some more experimenting with my net mesh... which used to be a vegetable bag before I tore into it. I went thru my stash and found a piece I dyed using leftovers... not really crazy for the color combination, so I figured "what the heck", might as well play with it! So first I stretched the netting over an area of the fabric, then used a roller to apply dishwashing gel with bleach over the netting. I removed the netting and let the area dry, then washed the gel out. I had been a little heavy-handed with the first try, and ended up with some areas where the netting design didn't show, and the color was mostly discharged leaving a pale area. I repeated the experiment, only this time I used very little gel on the roller, and got a better "print" of the netting design. Today, I soda soaked the fabric and let it dry. Then I stretched the netting over the two places I had discharged yesterday, only slightly altering the shape and direction of the netting. Then I lightly rolled over the area with thickened dye. Yup! That was the answer! I now have layers of netting over the piece, and I love the depth and shading! I'm letting it batch, but may go back and add more layers to the remaining fabric. What a rush! I'm finally beginning to feel like I have a better handle on 'complex cloth' than I ever have since I started experimenting with it!

No comments: