Rebar's the ticket!

I just unwrapped my fabric from the rebar and got good results so far! I decided to re-wrap and add to it, but here's a picture of the progress from this morning:
Meanwhile, I checked on my mud-dyeing experiment, but it didn't come out very well... either I don't have enough minerals to change the color or it hasn't stayed in the slurry long enough... anyway, I put it back in to 'batch' some more... will check back later on that.
While I was at it, I did some experiments with using leaves and thickened dyes to make impressions on fabric. Some worked well, others didn't, but then I rolled out another color over the fabrics, and that enhanced the images considerably. They are 'batching' now, so I will post pictures when they are rinsed out.

Uncharted territory

At our playdate last weekend, Melly, our facilitator/teacher/inspirer, gave us a challenge: Cut into at least 2 of the fabrics we have created using Surface Design/complex cloth techniques; create a piece approximately 12" x 12". So today, I began my project, not knowing what the end result would be. I had one LWI-dyed piece from the playdate that I sprayed bleach over using sequins as a resist, and dishwasher gel to stamp some of the surface. It came out rather interesting, so I decided to use it as my main theme. I have cut out several shapes and pinned them over another LWI piece I dyed at the same time I dyed the cut piece. Here is what I have so far:



I cut away 2 of the stamped areas and pinned elsewhere on the main piece, then slashed some of the remaining fabric to create the 'rays'. Now it's time to let my imagination have a go at what I should do next.... more to come!

Surface Design Play date

Today, several of us got together at the local Community college for a dyers' play date. What fun! It was a beautiful, crisp, fall day! We got there about 9, and before you know it, we had fabric hanging from the line brightening up the quad area.






I worked on several pieces, and here are my favorites:

Autumn Leaves


Untitled - I spritzed bleach water over sequins on a LWI dyed fabric... kind of looks like deep space!




Discharge dyed on LWI-dyed fabric
using torn newspaper as a resist

Overall Pattern on LWI-dyed fabric



I was very inspired by the work done by the other gals... what an incredible amount of talent and creative energy! I hope we make this a regular event!