Thursday, July 15, 2010

Resist dye experiments

Every once in awhile.... no, that's a LIE! I always want to experiment with dyes, resist methods, patterns... it just calls to me! So yesterday, I got "the call", and decided to revisit a method I first tried a few years ago, resist dyeing using CD's and clamps. I dyed a length of fabric with lemon yellow, light orange and scarlet to start with. Then I accordion folded the fabric, then covered the resulting folded fabric with CD's top and bottom, anchored with spring clamps:
Then I overdyed the exposed fabric with 3 colors, ombre-style: Maroon, Burgundy and Eggplant. After laundering and drying, I cut off a portion to further experiment with, forgetting to take a picture first... I make a really poor scientist! Anyway, here is a picture of the remaining fabric as it came out of the above dyebath:

I think there is enough here for you to see the ombre-effect.
With the two pieces I cut from the original, I refolded to match up the circles, then on the fabric on the left below, I used two rectangle-shaped wood pieces to partially cover the circles, using spring clamps to secure them; then I overdyed the exposed fabric with Royal Blue. On the fabric to the right, I used two oval wood shapes to partially cover the circles, again using spring clamps to secure them. Then I overdyed the exposed fabric with Cerulean Blue:
If you click on the images, you will see some of the blues have overdyed lighter areas to create some focal points. What I am amazed at is that the original circles were really transformed into different shapes! I was expecting some color layering but thought I would see the outline of the circles a little clearer, and maybe if I had overdyed with lighter dyes I would have. But I love the shapes that I get when I use this method to resist-dye. Now I need to get busy and use some of this fabric!

3 comments:

geni said...

Love the results of your experiments, they look gorgeous!

Cate Rose said...

Wonderful shibori, Judy!

Elizabeth said...

Love your results!! You are a process girl just like me!! I find it such fun when artists share their preocess with pictures on their blogs- but then I love to share!!!!