Heat Wave = Time to Dye!!

We have had triple digit temperatures for most of the past two weeks, so I decided to take some time off work for the specific purpose of dyeing fabric.  I sweated, had to take breaks in the air conditioned house, but I got about fifteen yards of fabric dyed.  I never tire of the process!!

This time I decided to set up a studio in the garage, since I wanted to do some soy wax batik also.  It worked really well- I had two tables and a TV tray, which gave (usually) plenty of room for my equipment and room to work.  Here's the setup after I was done, with all the fabric ironed and folded.  I never did get around to taking any pictures when I was actually working!

I had room to lay plastic on the floor of the garage, and also my Ikea drying rack.  The best part about the setup is the table on the right.  I got it at Walmart, it was labeled for tailgating parties.  It's sturdy, it folds up to half the size for storage, and it was very reasonably priced.  I put a 2 by 4 piece of plywood on top, covered that with a couple of towels and plastic, and it worked great.

I did some solids, flat dyeing on the table. . .

(except the four on the far left are multi-color pieces, I just squirted dyes on).

These are the best of the soy wax pieces.  I was especially happy with the one on top- I used a sponge in the soy wax, and it held the shapes very well.

I also had fun doing some clamp Shibori pieces.  I now have three sets of acrylic triangles, and two sets of squares.  I also found some round plastic carpet casters that worked great to do circles.

The piece on the left I just drew with a tjanting.  It looked great wet, not so great once it was washed and dried.  

I experimented again with flour paste resist- something I'd tried on silk a few years ago, and wasn't happy with.  I was so happy with the first one, I did a second and also tried oatmeal resist.  I think I like the flour better, but both are cool.

My favorite is the one in the middle- pale green, with dark blue veining.  The one below that is the oatmeal resist.


I did several flag folded pieces with the acrylic shapes, and loved how they came out.  I ended up dyeing two colors on each- here they are at the end of two dye baths.

The bottom right piece was done with the square shape.  The green on the left was originally a boring scrunch dye without a lot of texture, so I flag folded it and discharged in a bleach bath.  I really like how it came out, I think I will be doing more pale scrunch dyes that I overdye in a flag fold.

And I had to have something to wear, right?  This is a light rayon poncho from Dharma- I was hoping for a pastel Monet effect.  As much as I diluted the dyes, I should have diluted them more, it is a little brighter than the pastel effect I was hoping for.  But I'll still wear it!

Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to use all this fabric!

I'm linking this post to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday.  Take a look at what all the other fiber artists there have been up to!