Ugly Fabric

At least that is what Barbara, who sent fabric to a couple dozen dyers, said it was.  I'm sure some people got ugly fabric, but mine was not in that group.  The only 'rule' was that it had to be changed, and at least one layer had to be MX dyes.

It was a lovely shade of orange with lots of yummy texture.  The color reminded me of a sunset, so I decided to stick with that idea.  First I overdyed it with Dharma's Light Red, scrunching it in a tray and pouring the dye down the sides of the tray so it only hit the bottom of the scrunched fabric.

This made it look even more like a sunset to me.  I wanted to do some discharge, so I used Soft Scrub with a thermofax screen I'd made from one of my photographs that I manipulated.  I made screens in three different sizes- I like being able to use the same imagery in different scales.  That Soft Scrub discharged FAST- I really had to move to keep it from taking too much color out.

I also used pearlescent white paint and metallic gold paint with the screens.  I tried to make those images subtle rather than 'in your face.'

After a few days of looking at the piece on my design wall, I decided to add one more element- Shiva paint stiks with a rubbing plate.  This plate is turning out to be one of my favorites, it is so versatile.  I used iridescent pink, orange, and light gold on this layer.

I'm happy with how this turned out.  Now I'll just have to figure out how to use it in a quilt!