Did you know I originally started blogging to keep a journal of my projects? I suppose it still is a place to keep track of projects and musings and jottings, more for my own use than anything else. So much better than bits of paper here and there, or the frustrations of lost notebooks.
This means, of course, that this is also a good place to record those bits and bobs that I might otherwise misplace, such as this photo of a fabric dyed by one of my classmates. The dark lines are caused by the string that was used to wrap the fabric; it bleed into the fabric while in the dye bath. This strikes me as something that has all kinds of possibilities for future explorations.
Next up the remainder of my projects, possibly unfinished, possibly not. This first one is unfinished. It is silk crepe de chine, wrapped, and painted with a weak solution of cerulean blue. I intentionally wanted it to be light, to be the first stage of a multi-step process, but that was as far as I got during the workshop. I've been thinking I will wrap it again in a different direction and dye it in a related mid-strength color. There may be a third process as well, but I am still playing with possibilities in my imagination. I am willing to let this percolate in my imagination a little bit before proceeding.
The last two pieces were experiments in immersion dyeing, which was explained as being similar to the vat dyeing we had done. The main exception seemed to be that the fabric was not stirred to insure even dye absorption, and different effects could be achieved by knotting and tying, or by adding dye to the water at different stages of the immersion process.
Lana and I each dyed two pieces of fabric. The top one was Liana's in a pot of light green (I forgot the color) with some blue added in later. I also believe the fabric was knotted. The second pieces was my dye vat. I used 8 parts lemon yellow to 2 parts fuchsia red, with the tiniest pinch of warm black. Then, later in the dyeing process I sprinkled in a little more fuchsia and another pinch of black, letting the dry powder dissolve into the bath at its own pace.
Both of these fabrics could be used as they are, or they could be the first step in a multi-step process. I think a lot would depend on what I wanted to do with the pieces next, and I'm ok with the rather open-endedness nature of dyeing. If I've learned nothing else, I've learned to trust the process, to leave things be and let ideas evolve. What is the worst that can happen? A bit of wasted fabric, a little effort applied to learning rather than a finished something? A slow start doesn't imply a wasted effort; beauty arises out of iteration.