A TECHNIQUE DRIVEN Blog dedicated to mastery of surface design techniques. First we dye, overdye, paint, stitch, resist, tie, fold, silk screen, stamp, thermofax, batik, bejewel, stretch, shrink, sprinkle, Smooch, fuse, slice, dice, AND then we set it on fire using a variety of heat tools.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

a few last minute pieces

Today was silk day. I bit the bullet, mixed the acid dyes I had on hand (finally). I bring procrastination into an art form around some activities. I used citric acid crystals as a soak (10 minutes), then pole wrapped the silk and after wrapping in cling wrap, popped the working end of my pole into a steamer with a aluminum foil hat for the pole and a foil skirt covering the area of open space between the pot and pole as it protruded from the pot. Sorry no pics. It never occurred to me...
Here is a Crepe de Chine scarf I pole wrapped and dyed with Washfast (ProChemical) after citric acid soaking. It was blue but with some yellow to get the turquoise color and there is a subtle splitting in the solid areas which is hard to see in these pics.


Then I dyed this silk Haboti folded in fourths and dyed in a greenish chartreusey olive. I like!



And last of all, I mixed up some deep aubergine and some more of this green but even more olive. I soaked the fabric, squeezed out, loosely arranged on a sheet of cling wrap and poured both colors on to it. I closed the wrap and popped in the steamed. All steaming was 10 minutes..

One thing - no make that two things I like about the acid dyes. VIVID colors and done in 10 minutes. You gotta love that.

3 comments:

  1. And wasn't it you that said you would never steam-dye anything? Too much work?? LOL

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  2. I love how you said you make procrastination into an artform -- sometimes thinking about a project makes it seem SO big, then when you do it, it's surprising how easy it is!

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  3. Laura- You know that is so true and I KNOW that and I STILL procrastinate!!! That's why I love our play group - I MUST perform. It is a real ice breaker plus I do techniques I never would have tried alone or was interested in. Sometimes I surprise myself.

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