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.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Projects using scrunch dyed fabrics

Now that we have scrunch dyed some fabrics, what do we do with it?  Well, I thought I would share a few projects I have made using my scrunch dyed fabrics.  Most of the time, the project comes to mind after the fabrics are dyed, but I do have one Landscape Quilt I created several years ago, where I specifically dyed the fabrics to use in making the quilt:
  













I used a photograph I took of some rocks as my inspiration, but needed to enhance the design with color.  I had a lot of fun experimenting with various colors to come up with the right combinations!
For the fabrics I dyed for my earlier posts, I did not have any specific ideas about what I would do with them ahead of time.  I was more interested in comparing the different variations to see what results I would get.  Once I finished the dyeing, I had to go through a period of mulling over what I thought might be a good project that would showcase the fabrics in an interesting way.  I actually came up with a couple of ideas, and I'm in the process of pursuing one based on Rayna Gillman's book, "create your own free-form quilts.  If you are unfamiliar with Rayna or her techniques, you can see posts here in the January 2012 archives, or visit Rayna's blog here for more info.  
Here are some pictures of stripsets and blocks I have created so far using my scrunch dyed fabrics, other hand dyed fabrics and  commercial fabrics all from my stash:





Needless to say, I have just begun, but already I'm caught up in ways I can use these fabrics in what will probably end up an abstract wall hanging.  I hope to use a couple of larger pieces to showcase the designs that I got with the scrunching technique.  I will post more as I go along, and I hope to see posts or links from others this month showing your dyeing experiments as well as projects where you use the fabrics you dyed!

11 comments:

  1. I LOVE seeing how you have used (and plan to use) these fabrics. I seem to have trouble cutting into them.

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  2. Beth, I share your struggle to cut into fabrics! Some that I'm working with on this project are from a class I took in '07... just waiting for the right project. But my stash screams for me to use it, so I can make room for more, so I'm forcing myself to cut. The good news is, once I got started, I remembered how much fun it is, so I may just cut and sew for awhile before I decide what to do with all my strip sets and blocks! More to come...

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  3. I love the colors you've combined. I also am sometimes reluctant to cut up certain fabrics -- I always want to show them off at their best and I worry that I'm not. But my stash also screams to be used -- and I found Rayna's ideas most liberating.

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  4. Nice to see what you do whit all your fabric!!

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  5. Your rock-landscape is very beautiful. I think the fabric enhances the forms and and suits superbly.

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  6. Thanks for all your kind words. Beata, the rock scene was definitely a challenge at the time, as I love the formation I used as my subject matter, but I knew I had to do something to color the scene. I have another one I did later using a basalt column formation as my subject, called "Devil's Post Pile". You can see it here? http://www.tiedyejudy.com/ if you click on "Art and Landscape Quilts" - it's about the 3rd photo down.

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  7. Beautiful job on your rocks with your great fabrics. It is hard to cut into our creations. Often I will print out 3 x 5 inch pics of my fabrics, cut into those and play around with them first before cutting into the actual fabric. I've had less waste that way.

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  8. The landscape is very nice! While I've used snow dyed fabrics in several pieces before...it has a whole different look when all of the parts are snow dyed!

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  9. Just to clarify, Kelly... the dyes used in the landscape piece were scrunch dyed, but not using snow. I just used liquid dyes directly applied to the scrunched fabrics. Sometimes it's hard to tell, isn't it?

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  10. LOL! I had just also read your post about the snow dyeing and I guess that was still in my mind! But yes they are quite similar in final results.

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