Fun with Ann Johnson

The first time Judith and I got together for our play date, I was a bit tired and spent most of the time taking photos of her working so I was REALLY looking forward to having my own fun with some of these technique.

After working with Judith I realized the importance of properly sized containers. These were just a few I picked up at the dollar store. I also used a small bucket, plastic bags and an empty DVD lid (very nice).

I'll just mention two of the experiments I did even though two involved more than one piece of fabric.

For some reason I was obsessed with this white vent hosing so it was the first thing I tried. I had an almost full yard of LWI fuchsia fabric. It was easy to roll up, probably the easiest , and I ran a string through the center to compress the vent hose and fabric as best I could. I then pout the entire roll into a plastic bag with 1 cup water, 1 cup of dye solution and after 15 minutes, one cup of soda ash.

While it was in the pan I rotated it about every 15 minutes trying to get uniform coverage. This was the easiest of all the techniques because it opened like an accordion when done. The others were WAY harder to get off their resist piece.

The dye solution on this piece was 1 Tablespoon each: Purple, Boysenberry and Basic Blue with enough water to equal one cup. I did wait the 15 mintes before adding the soda ash but just left the fabric in the bag with all the liquids for one hour. Ann was right, one hour is enough.

 washed

Dried and ironed

I really like this and it may be my favorite but other techniques had great results as well.


This was the most beautiful soft piece of Rayon Challis you can imagine. I had dyed it nutmeg although it was much more a rusty color than red in real life.
I don't have a before but this is a section of a quilt made with the Rayon.

This was rolled on the plastic chain and the dye solution was 1 tablespoon each intense blue, navy and boysenberry. It soaked in the water and dye solution about 15 minutes then I added the soda ash and waited an hour.