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.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Third Time's a Charm




 It took me three tries to get this right, but I really like the results.  The first time, the syrup was too thin and I schmeared it all over the fabric and got really light, non- resisted stuff.  Unlike Judith, I didn't save them to show -- I immediately over-dyed them and now I love them.

The second time, I boiled it too long or too hot and got some delicious caramel.  Great for eating -- not so great for this project.

 The third time it was just right -- I set a timer and didn't leave the kitchen to do other things while it was simmering.  The top two photos show the sugar syrup drizzled over the fabric and the third is the result after everything was washed out.
 




This shows the sugar syrup before I applied all the dye.


This is the syrup and dye before batching and rinsing.


This is a close up of the syrup mixing with the dyes.  I love the way the syrup and the dye run together.

And the finished piece.  I found that fat quarters worked well for this.  I took a piece of heavy plastic -- the stuff I use for covering my tables for my projects -- that was only a little wider than the fabric.  I rolled up the fabric as I finished and then let the fabric/plastic sausage batch overnight in a bucket outside.  The nest morning I just filled the bucket with water, removed the plastic, and let the syrup and excess dye run off.  No -- I didn't have any problems with ants.


 This one was done with drops of syrup and dye from pipettes.


I like the backside of all of these best -- you can see the patterning from the dyes running together with the resist.

I like this -- it's easy and there's no waiting for stuff to dry before dyeing.  The results are quite different from the flour resists I'm so fond of.  I did some resist/dye-painting recently that is here on my own blog.   Very different....

4 comments:

  1. Interesting results. It scares me a little that it took you three tries to get the syrup consistency correct. I'm hoping I get my syrup right the first time as I don't have much sugar to play with.

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  2. Beth -- If you just follow Lisa's directions carefully, you'll do just fine. She said to leave white space and that's important with this. Otherwise, the syrup just dilutes the dyes and you get pastel blobs. The third time I did simmer it a bit longer than she suggested -- but only about five more minutes.

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  3. Caramel?! Yumm. I'm too impatient - I've never cooked mine long enough to get caramel.

    As for the undercooking - if you put it in the fridge overnight, the consistency should be fine the next day.

    Great results, Karen!

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  4. Love the results, and will benefit from your shared experiments, thank you!

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