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....

A great technique does not guarantee great results

I almost did not post my results from my sugar resist experiment.  It is not that the technique did not work.  I just made bad choices and the results ... well, you'll see.  It was like I forgot every dyeing lesson I ever learned!  LOL

I started out with a really lovely ice dyed fabric.  Here you see it pinned to my wonderful padded print surface that Beth helped me make. I have been thinking about stamping a pattern in a resist on one of my ice dyes and then overdyeing it in black.  So that was my plan to try with the sugar resist on this piece.

Here are the stamps I used.  I bought them on my summer vacation at a craft fair in Berea, Kentucky.

 

I then cooked my sugar resist from white sugar and water, let it cool, and stamped the fabric with the resist.  It was a big more blobby that I wanted but still doable.

Next I immediately stamped the fabric with some leftover fuchsia dye paste I had in the fridge.

 I forgot to take a picture of the next step but I dropped black dye onto the fabric in droplets that did not completely cover the fabric with the dye so you can see the drops.  Since that black dye was also leftover dye from the fridge, at this point there was no soda ash in the process.  To add the soda ash, I sprayed the fabric with the solution.  I expected a lot of bleeding of the black dye but got very little.  I then let it batch, rinsed, washed, dried, ironed, and got this results. Yuck.

And a couple of detail shots where I tried to avoid the too bright fuchsia dragonflies. Without the dragonflies, the fabric is ...uh...interesting.

This is definitely a piece that will go back into the recycle pile but I learned some lessons. 

1.  Yep, Lisa did warn us that the wet on wet technique gave soft edges.  The sugar resist did work but it has very soft edges that would look great in something other than blobby dragonflies. Assessment--I shoulda known better.

2. Dragonfly stamps are better used with a resist with more thickness that will give more detail and harder edges.  See assessment above.

3.  Droplets really do not do a good job of defining shapes.  I needed an all over color to do that. See assessment #1.

4. Try again but try not to forget all my years of hard learned lessons.  LOL