In less than 24 hours, the Twelve by Twelve blog will be displaying the work we have created for the Colourplay challenge - blue & white with a dash of black. Here are some results from my last shibori dyeing session that might have been a foundation for a 12×12 quilt if I had allowed myself more time.
For some reason, which has been explained to me but I’ve forgotten*, it is commonplace in Australia to mark the seasons on the first day of certain months rather than equinox and solstice. Accordingly, 1 March is widely regarded as the first day of autumn. In fact, mild days are likely to continue well into April but it was wonderfully warm today and I decided to make the most of it by dyeing some specific colours for a project I have in mind. As is often the case, one of the best results was the piece of fabric I pleated up at the end to use up what was left of the dye solutions. The fabric is actually lemon-lime colour so this photograph is not true but you can see the striations:
* One story making the rounds is that the NSW Corps, upon first European settlement in Sydney Cover, changed from its summer to winter uniform on the first of March and from its winter to its summer uniform on the first of September. The starting dates for the other seasons followed this.
The next Twelve by Twelve reveal is only a week or so away and I’m still struggling to get started. Today I thought I’d try out my new clamps and perspex resist shapes. I can already tell that I have not clamped close enough to the edge and dye has sneaked in. Oh well. Live and learn.
After reading an article about “extreme shibori” by Sue Cavanaugh in the December/January 2010 issue of Quilting Arts magazine, I was keen to experiment with some mokume (woodgrain) stitch resist shibori in blue and white, the current Twelve by Twelve colorplay challenge palette (with a dash of black).
So I spent several evenings stitching. Then I pulled the threads tight and applied the dye solutions:
The whole process was quite time consuming (removing the drawstrings afterwards is very tedious) but I am not discouraged. Maybe I have a little blue dye in my blood. I’m a quarter Hungarian (thanks to my maternal grandfather) and I’ve just been learning about Hungarian blue dye fabrics. Some of you may have seen the exhibition of Hungarian Blue & White Quilts curated by Anna Dolanyi, the former President of the Hungarian Patchwork Guild. According to the Material Obsession blog, Sydneysiders will have a one-time opportunity to view the exhibition at:
Today I decided to embrace the warm weather and do some dyeing. I need some meterage for a proposed project and decided to use a dye bath technique to ensure more even colour rather than my usual low-immersion scrunching. Unfortunately, I over-stirred and agitated and the results are dull and lifeless. Thank goodness, there is such a thiing as over-dyeing. In the meantime, I had a little blue dye left over so did some simple fabric folding shibori to warm up to the next Twelve by Twelve colourplay challenge. Blue and white (the dash of black is yet to come) is such a fresh palette.
I was in Sydney yesterday stitching with Erica so collecting the mail fell to the Laundry King. He complained loudly about having to carry a heavy bundle of fabric up the hill. This is what 20 yards of 60″ wide PFD Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton looks like:
For dyeing, I mostly use PFD Pimatex by Robert Kaufman. The Pimatex pieces beautifully but, with its high thread count, sometimes resists hand-stitching so I thought I would try out the Kona cotton. It helped that Hancocks of Paducah were offering a free shipping deal at the time. If you’re quick, you can take advantage of the current free shipping offer which expires on 18 November 5.00pm CST
• Type 11FREE09 in the Promotional Code box during checkout.
• United States minimum for free shipping: $30.00
• International minimum for free shipping: $75.00
Stock up and you can be prepared for dyeing too!
So there I was, just quickly checking some blogs and e-mails before getting started on some sewing, and here I am still at my computer nearly an hour later. Sucked in! but in a good way. It all started when I went to Pink Chalk Studios and read Kathy’s review on Color Your Cloth: A Quilter’s Guide to Dyeing and Patterning Fabric by Malka Dubrawsky:
The technique of dyeing using clamped resists is known as itajime shibori. It is a technique used to funky effect in the Ocelot clothing line. I also used this technique in my Twelve-themed work - Double Six. Which reminds me, I really must get on with my pink piece, which may (or may not!) include itajime shibori.
With the weather forecast for a warm day and the wet area in David’s workshop temporarily clear, I seized the moment to do some fuschia dyeing for the first Twelve by Twelve Colourplay Challenge - pink! I’ll let you know how this batch turns out.
While I once declared I would never do shibori dyeing again. Now it’s more like once in a blue moon. So far, three out of eleven of my Twelve by Twelve works incorporate shibori-style techniques: Piece de Resistance, Radiance and Introspection. I thought it might be fun to see if I could put some shibori into the current theme - Twelve. I experimented with using 20 cent coins as a resist. The results were not quite what I was after but the interaction of the coins with the soda ash solution gives an interesting ring effect that I’ll keep in mind for future pieces:
And I meant to mention that last week Erica and I made an excursion to Fairfield City Museum and Art Gallery for the International ArtCloth exhibition, ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions, which continues until 11 October 2009 before touring elsewhere in Australia.
We had the gallery to ourselves and could take everything in at our own pace. Each of the twenty works were presented in a banner-like format approximately 1 metre wide by 3 metres long. For me, the least interesting pieces were those that incorporated digital images - while undoubtedly clever, they lacked the character of a personal hand. My favourite piece was Razing/raising walls, Warsaw by Norma Starszakowna of England for its earthy palette and the way light passed through transparent section to create patterns on the wall behind. Unfortunately Norma does not have a website but I found a handful of images online.
In my recent dyeing session, in addition to my triad dyeing exercise, I took Red MXBG + Golden MX3R + Sky Blue MXR to make a 12 step colour wheel with dark and lights:
I mixed the dyes in the following ratios:
|
RED
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YELLOW
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BLUE
|
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100%
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100%
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100%
|
|
R/Y 50:50
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Y/B 50:50
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B/R 50:50
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|
R/Y 75:25
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Y/B 75:25
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B/R 75:25
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R/Y 25:75
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Y/B 25:75
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B/R 25:75
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The lighter colours are created by adding fabric that has been pre-soaked in soda ash later in the batching process. You can read more about this in Color by Accident by Ann Johnston.
On the subject of gradations, one of my fellow Twelves Terri Stegmiller has prepared a tutorial for 2-colour gradations (PDF download).
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