Dye Class: The Third Installment

And back to dyeing.  I need to record what I did, what I thought.  Have patience.

The third technique we learned on that first day of dye class was how to mix and stabilize dye for hand painting.  My initial thoughts were mixed.  When I imagine hand-painted fabric, I tend to imagine beautifully detailed flowers and designs, but of course we weren't talking about that kind of painting.  Big relief.  My skills at drawing are pretty close to nil.  But I was tired, and had fabric to spare, so figured I should give it a try.

Three of us spread out some plastic on a table and got to work.  Liana and I were both working on the linen/cotton blend, and using crimson red and cobalt blue dyes.  Liana found a muse in abstract expressionism, but I was not so daring, seeking more discrete shapes.  I made wide brushstrokes with the red, and tried to make swirling lines and curlicues with the blue paint. Frankly I wasn't too happy with my results. Inspired by my more creative classmates I decided a third color was needed, I dipped the end of a stirring stick in lemon yellow paint and flicked it over the fabric, creating random dots and splotches.  Then I folded the fabric in plastic and left it cure overnight.

Exhausted as I was, I still lay awake fretting over what to do next far too long on Thursday night, finally deciding wrap the fabric tightly for to Arashi Shibori and overdue it with black.  However, while I was wrapping my fabric another classmate was painting with a watered-down black that was close to a deep charcoal gray, and I decided to use the gray dye to paint the edges of my fabric rather than submerging it in dye.

I rather like the results, although as you can see, there was not enough dye to soak into the innermost layer of fabric, so only 2/3 of the fabric shows much pattern from the dye.  I am still perhaps more attracted the random  patterning on Liana's fabric (right), but think there is room for further exploration here, perhaps in a combination of random and control patterning using multiple techniques. 

I particularly like the way the string has created a texture in the fabric.  I know it will wash out when I wash the fabric, and I know I need to wash it to rinse out the any excess dye, but I am reluctant to do so at this point.  I am wondering if the fabric is useable now, without washing, or if I need to just get over it and move on.

 But even without the texture I love the way the colors are blurred together. For the moment I am happy to leave it just as it is.