An Ann Johnston's Grand Finale

Judith again but for the last time.  Here are the surface designed fabric I made with Beth in February using Ann's suggestions for hoses, chains, and ropes.  Oh my!

 

 This first one was wrapped around a chain diagonally, scrunched up, placed in purple dye for 15 minutes, then soda ash was added to the dye.  Here is a picture of it batching.

 One yard length, salvage to salvage width, cotton fabric.

The purple dye was an overdye. The original dye was a soy wax pattern on a silk screen.  It was just too ugly!  But with the purple on top of it, I see koi under ripples of water.  What do you see?

  One yard length, salvage to salvage width, cotton fabric.

Okay, this one is still horrible but I think it can be added to and improved.  This was a rope wrap.  Notice that the texture is not as strong as the pattern made by the chain.  Just like the first piece, this is an overdye of a particularly ugly piece.  For some reason I thought scraping straight dye powder onto fabric would give a great affect.  Not so much.  The texture overdye did soften the strong splotches.  I think I need to stamp an equally strong pattern in an equally strong color to counteract the fushia.  But now I at least have a great background for all the foreground clutter I need to add.  I am open to suggestions.  Here is a wonderful detail short of the texture.

This last one is my most and least favorite. As a whole fabric piece, it does not work but the detail shots are wonderful.  I can either add something and make a better whole cloth design or I can cut it up and use it as is.   Do you have a preference or suggestion?

One yard length, salvage to salvage width, cotton fabric.

This is another overdyed piece.  The original had the soy wax circles with blue and orange dye paste spread on with a credit card.  You can see some of the lines from the applications.  I then wrapped it around a hose, scrunched, dyed, soda ashed, and batched. Ugh but here are the detail shots.

I hope that: 1) I have inspired you to try some of Ann's techniques and 2) don't throw away a "failure" but try, try again.  It may just need a second or third or fourth technique or overdye.

Have Fun!

One Step Past Ann Johnston

Hi!  Judith here.  With my broken hand in February I wasn't able to post all the experiments that I did using Ann Johnston's techniques.  I am glad that I now have 3 days to show off some of the experiments and the next steps I have taken with some of the pieces.

This is a yard long piece of linen-cotton blend. It does not take the colors strongly so the color is more muted than it would have been on cotton. 

This is Ann's flat dyed ombre technique.  First, lay the fabric flat on a surface that you can dye on.  The fabric needs to already be wet with soda ash water.  Pour the dye mixture, in this case grape, on one corner or section of your fabric.  From there you just keep diluting the dye with soda ash water and move the liquid down the rest of the fabric using your hands.   Batch, rinse, wash, dry, of course.  As you see it leaves a very nice graduated color.  It is fine for cutting up to use in a quilt but a bit boring as a whole cloth piece.

I wanted to get rid of the bare white so I used the same method as before but this time I used a pale yellow.  I started in the opposite corner than I did with the grape dye.  Better but still boring.

 I decided to batik the fabric.  I used a lotus pod for the stamp and used red dye with a splash of fushia.  Wow, what a difference!  Two detail photos below.  The colors are accurate--just from different ends of the material.

The fabric is not finished. The middle is a bit too muddy to use as a whole cloth quilt.  I won't dye it again.  I think that would make it far too muddy.  Next step will be stamping.  But for now, I will let it
sit for a while till I have a better idea of where I want to go with it.

Overdyeing

Overdyeing is the best way I know of to "fix" things that aren't exactly what I wanted or aren't something I think I will ever use.

I took three out of the four turquoise fat quarters that I used in my turquoise experiment earlier this month, applied a beeswax resist using an egg carton,

then dyed them again in Kelly Green, Sapphire, and a mixture of the two--

These will each make a pretty nice little pillow, hopefully.

And the piece here on the left was also batiked with an egg carton--

Then overdyed with a purple & lemon yellow mixture to tone down the bright colors and make the background brownish, and it now looks like this:

 This is my last post about Ann Johnston's DVD, it's been a very fun month!

Reposting-Dyeing Turquoise using LWI

Laura's post--(sorry the pictures didn't show up in the one I sent to Beth for posting)

Using Turquoise in LWI dyeing

I experimented with using Turquoise dye powder and the low water immersion method, because Turquoise is the one color that the dye experts tell you has to stay on for 12-24 hours in order to bind to the fabric.  I love using turquoise, and was wondering how it would work to use this method that only requires one hour of batching your fabric.

I dyed four fat quarters using 1/4 cup water and 2 tablespoons of dye concentrate.

One piece was left in the dye for one hour, the second for 2 hours, the third for 8 hours, and the last for a full 24 hours.

The value different is subtle, and hard to see in these pictures, but the one-hour piece was almost an icy blue, while the 24-hour piece was a slightly deeper shade of turquoise.  There was hardly any difference between the one-hour and two hour pieces.

So, my conclusion is that if you are using Turquoise in your 1 hour LWI dyeing, you might want to mix up a stronger concentrate so it isn't lost during the washing out part of the process.

The Story of Two Dyes

In the last couple of weeks I dyed two pieces of fabric using Ann's LWI process.  One fabric I wanted mottled with multiple colors. The second I wanted to be more flat in color.  I used Ann Johnston's method on both fabrics and by using different combinations of dyes while using the same process, I got both of the effects that I wanted.

First, I dyed a fat quarter with a mixture of blues and purples, I didn't measure and didn't record which ones.  I used the dye concentrates (1 T of dye powder + 2 T of Urea + enough water to make one cup of liquid) that I made up previously.  Since it was a small piece of fabric I used only 1/4 cup of each liquid in the process--1/4 cup water to wet the fabric, 1/4 cup of water with the chosen dye concentrates to dye the fabric, and lastly, 1/4 cup of soda ash mixture to set the dye. Wait one hour and here are my results.  I love the mottling.

The second piece was a two-yard length of fabric that will become the front and back of a baby quilt for my new great-nephew.  I wanted it dyed a strong yellow so that I could batik several layers of blue over it. Because I want bright colors, I did not want any red mixed in my yellow dye (the red would have dulled the green from the blue and yellow mix). That really limited the yellows that I could use since most of them have an orange hue to them.  I used lots of lemon yellow and just a drop of sun yellow concentrate.  I took more pictures this time.

Here are the two  yards of dry fabric stuffed into a gallon ice cream tub and the 2 cups of water I am going to pour over it to wet it before I add the dye.

Here is my dye concentrate mixed in with the 2 cups of water for the dye solution.  Once the material was thoroughly wet, I added the dye solution.

Here is the fabric after I wet it with 2 cups water, 2 cups of dye, waited 15 minutes, and then added 2 cups of soda ash solution.  Notice it is not completely covered with liquid.  I worried a bit about that.

Here is the result.  A much more flat color since I used very little dye variation.  And boy, is it yellow! (The spot in the upper right is just a water spot that will dry)

Lessons Learned:
1.  One pure color is going to create a more flat color.
2.  Multiple pure colors, even if they are very similar, produce a more mottled, interesting fabric.
3.  I love LWI dyeing.

Interview with Ann Johnston, Part 2

How did the "Chain" idea come to you?

The chain idea came from the rope!  I have carried a wet rope all over the world in my suitcase, stained, fraying, etc. I always look for something that will be easier to clean and lighter. I would look for one with even larger links. They don't work exactly the same, it slips easier on the chain which is good, but the wrinkles aren't as tight and dye gets into the links so dyes the fabric from the inside. The rope adds some of the last color to the next piece (which can be ok and will probably wash out) unless soaked for a very long time.

What sorts of quilts do you make and are they planned or become as a response to the fabric you create?

I make lots of sorts of quilts. pieced, appliquéd, whole cloth, big wedding quilts, tiny baby quilts, and every size of wall piece. The first 200 or so were mostly hand quilted, now mostly machine quilted. please look at my web site, annjohnston.net under the gallery menu. you sill see some going way back under the collections item.  There are lots of photos, not all, as the old stuff didn't have digital versions. 

 Many pieces are a response to the fabric itself. Most recently, I have focused on doing quilts about a region I love, called the Sierra Nevada. this link will bring you to a flyer for the exhibit 

http://www.annjohnston.net/TheContact_exhibit.pdf

and this link has some text and images about it.  http://www.annjohnston.net/calendarexhibitions.html

I am dyeing fabric for more quilts in the same vein, to be exhibited altogether sometime, somewhere... for now the exhibit is traveling with 14 quilts.

 If there are any questions others have asked in the past that you think our readers will be interested in, please add them on to our questions.

Feel free to ask me any questions anytime.

Can you also send a few pics of your quilts?

I have so many photos on my web site. but here are two that are too new to be up there yet. Please include my copyright date with the title and size.

 Ann Johnston c 2014 Between the Veins. is 48" x 43"

 
Ann Johnston c 2014 Between the Veins. is 48" x 43" detail

Ann Johnston c 2014 Wave 13,  26 x 25

   

Ann Johnston c 2014 Wave 13,  26 x 25 detail

Ann Johnston

For gallery, workshops and on-line orders : www.annjohnston.net

   new DVD - Color By Accident: Exploring

    The Quilter's Book of Design, Expanded 2nd Edition

    Speaking in Cloth: 6 Quilters, 6 Voices             

    Color By Design: Paint and Print with Dye

    Color By Accident: Low-Water Immersion Dyeing

An Interview with Ann Johnston, Part One

Thank you, Ann, for answering some of our questions!  The picture above is grabbed from Ann's website.

How did you come upon the idea of LWI? I know you spoke a bit about it on the DVD but just the thought process would be interesting

I have told this story so many times, but it still makes me wonder why no one did the low-water immersion before I did. I guess we were all busy trying to make our hand dyed fabric look professional, commercial, even, etc. which requires lots of water, big buckets, long gloves, a scale to weigh everything, endless stirring and various adaptations with salt  and difficulties with dark colors and is actually almost impossible to get the colors as even as the machines can. I call it the traditional vat method. And that's what all the teachers taught. When I saw the pieces we missed stirring hidden in the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket, that was the beginning. Dividing the quantities in half with the same results, and in half again, using so much less dye seemed like a gift. It was the chemist at Pro Chem, Don Wiener, who told me that I should leave out the salt as it could prevent the dye from penetrating the fibers. Another advantage. I don't always want dramatically variegated colors but they were unique and attractive to the eye, they made the solids look flat. Now, I have learned a lot of variations to how to manipulate the fabric for different effects. Very fun and useful too.

What was the idea behind taking pure colors and mixing them? What were your ultimate goals? Was it just "what if"?

The reason I started with using only single-chemical colors is that they cost less in larger quantities and I can mix them and learn what they do. If I use mixes they are sometimes discontinued or are changed using different colors to get to the same mix. There are so many mixed colors, and I would change them anyway by adding something to them or by putting them over another color. If I use only 10 or 14 or so, I can learn more about them and know that I had to have used some of those to get the color I had last week, not some of over 200 colors. 

What other workshops, DVD's or classes to you offer outside of your dyeing workshops.

I offer a variety of dye workshops and some design workshops for groups and conferences. you can see the list here, each has a link to a description.

http://www.annjohnston.net/lecturesandworkshops2.html

I also offer a few workshops in my studio each year. These are variations on the same topics, but much more focused as the classes have only four people and I can adapt the information to the interests of the individuals. You can see the list with links to descriptions for 2014 here:

http://www.annjohnston.net/lecturesandworkshops.html#studio_workshops 

Registration CLOSES for all 3 workshops February 21, 2014.

Parfait Dyeing

Posted by Laura McGrath-guest during February--

Lots of fun stuff going on here with Ann Johnston’s DVD Color by Accident this month!  I’m going to show my results with some of her Parfait Dyeing technique.

First, I mixed up all the dye solutions, using the 14 pure colors.  I used 2 cups of water and 3-4 tablespoons of dye powder to each bottle.  (And realized later, after doing a bunch of dyeing, that I forgot to add the 4-8 tablespoons of urea that I was supposed to include—whoops!)

For the parfait dyeing, I wet my fabric pieces that were each about 18” x 44”, and wrung out the excess water.  Then I put one piece in a large jar and scrunched it up really good.  I took a one cup container and put about 4 tablespoons of Intense Blue dye solution in it, then filled with water to have a full cup.  I poured it on the fabric, waited about 5 minutes, then poured in about ½ cup of soda ash/water solution.  Second piece was done the same way, this time using Tangerine dye solution, and adding soda ash again.  For the third piece I used Strong Orange dye concentrate, and again added soda ash, and squished it all down tightly.

Then I waited an hour, and rinsed it all out, and washed in the washing machine.

Here are the finished pieces:

I did this whole process again, the second time using a stronger solution of the same dye concentrates (8 tablespoons dye solution of each color).  I thought I would get a really deeper color, but it didn't make it twice as dark.

Here are the two sets side-by-side--

It surprised me that the Tangerine and Strong Orange colors were pretty much taken over by the blue, creating so much green.  The best part of this process is that it was SO easy! 

Check out more of my Ann Johnston dyeing results on my blog, Periwinkle Art Quilts.

February--A Month to Dye For!

This month we are going to talk about all things Ann Johnston and what she can teach us about dyeing.  Ann has even agreed to do an interview with us!  Yeah! The above picture is grabbed from Ann's website's gallery. Please do go to her gallery and see more of her work.

I thought I was a decent dyer.  Not an expert but certainly not a novice.  I mean I had dyed for years---low water immersion, snow, ice, parfait, tray, thickened, silk screened, painted, scraped, sprayed, shiboried, batiked, printed, and probably more. But I was wrong. Watching the Color by Accident DVD pointed out to me that I had tried lots of techniques but that I had not taken the time to learn the dyes themselves.

It is time to change that and I am taking you along with me!  Beth Schellenberger, Laura McGrath, and Inke are helping me on the journey this month along with a few readers who have volunteered to show you their experiments.

Lesson one:  DYE COLORS

Let me start with the dye colors. Do you ever get confused about which blue, yellow, or red to buy?  I know that I did.  And then the zillions of colors that you can spend your money on.  Which ones are fabulous and which ones will sit on your shelf?  And how many of them do I need? Ann gave me some valuable clues.

Did you know there are only 14 pure MX Procion Dyes?  At first I thought that meant "pure" like you use the term for colors on a color wheel.  I was expecting a color wheel full range of colors.

Not quite.  The MX pure dyes are those made from one chemical.  ALL of the other colors are mixtures of the pure dyes.  You will  notice when you see the list that there are 4 yellows, 1 orange, 2 reds, 2 purples (neither of which is called purple), 5 blues and NO green.

So the answer to which colors are necessary is 14.  All other colors are mixtures of these 14.  Now that doesn't mean not to ever buy any other colors.  I love Chartreuse and find it more practical to buy it mixed than to mix it each time.  You might have favorite mixed colors that you want to keep buying. But do start your buying with the 14 pure colors.

Here is the list of the pure colors from Prochem.  You can order similar ones from Dharma but Prochem was nice enough to post a list.  I was going to copy and  paste the list here but it copies poorly.  You will have to use the link to read the colors. The list from the Prochem site does print very nicely.

My first step when I learned that fact was to go through my dyes and find out which ones of the pure dyes I had and then order the rest.  I won't bore  you with how many OTHER reds, greens, oranges, pinks, etc I had.

My  next step was to go to the store and buy containers to mix and store my dye concentrates in.  I dye often enough that I can store some dyes already mixed with water (NOT soda ash water) in the fridge without worrying about the dye's losing their strength.  Now when ever I want to dye, I don't have to hunt down my mask to mix the dye powders!  One messy step already accomplished! The dye concentrate recipe is: 1 Tablespoon of dye powder/ 2 Tablespoons Urea/ enough water to make 1 cup of concentrate. Shake.

Just a note:  I wish that I had a separate fridge for all my dyes but I don't.  I store my dyes in the same fridge with my food.  The mixed dyes are clearly labeled, in similar containers, that container shape is not used for anything else but dyes, and they are in a designated location in the fridge.  With those rules I don't worry about my  husband and me mistaking the grape dye for grape juice.  But I don't have kids at home anymore either.  If you have kids, you might think about how to handle that problem before storing your dyes.

My  next project is to develop a color wheel of the pure dyes.  That will help me decide which of the 4 yellows and 5 blues I want to mix together to get green.

Help me! I'm Dyeing!

Nienke introduced Beth to Ann Johnston's DVD, Color by Accident.  Beth got all excited and told me it was worth a semester in college. So I watched it.  She was right!  I had no idea how little I knew about dyeing!  Now I know why Nancy Crow recommended Ann's Color by Accident when a student at the Barn asked Nancy for a recommendation.  I immediately bought the pure 14 colors from Prochem and started trying Ann's dyeing techniques.

In fact, I was so inspired by the Color by Accident DVD that I am going to be a Guest Artist for February.  I am going to be sharing some of what I learned so far and trying more of Ann's techniques. Two of my friends and past Resident Artists on the Fire blog, Beth Schnellenberger and Laura McGrath, are joining me.  

I hope you will join us too!  If you love Ann Johnston and want to dye with us in February, contact me at Quiltordye@ftml.net and we'll make plans!