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, July 1, 2016

A boring quilt top re-imagined

Hi everyone, I'm Laura McGrath, and I was one of the original artists on this blog way back in 2010. I'm doing a few posts this month, on a few random topics that are totally unrelated. I'm one of those surface design people who likes to try everything, but it doesn't always work out the way I'd hoped (or planned)...

Here is my first topic--This quilt top was one I sewed together many years ago, and has been in my UFO pile forever. It's about twin bed size, and just very "blah".


I decided to spice it up a bit, so I got out this Cleanline Resist that I bought a while ago and never used, and painted some of the resist on some new screen printing screens I had made up. 


This product is about the consistency of acrylic paint, yet is water soluble, so it will eventually come off the screens.






I mixed up some Procion dyes and sodium alginate thickener to pull through the screens.

I like how the original patterns of the fabric still shows through.


The screens were good for about 6-7 pulls each before the design disintegrated

I think I used Mixing Blue, Sage, and Bronze dye colors, but I didn't write them down so I'm not 100% sure of that.


I had to pull out a few of my other screens to finish since the quilt top was so big!


So here it is after washing, it looks a little different now, doesn't it?



I liked it, but wanted to do more.  Since I had no emotional attachment to this piece (meaning I don't care if I really mess it up) I decided to do some more. Stay tuned!


5 comments:

  1. That was a pretty bold move with your quilt top. I like the result, can't wait to see where you go next. I have a quilt top that is way too contrasty--think Halloween--any ideas for things to try?

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  2. Talk about a DESIGN OPPORTUNITY! Wow! You really did make something out of this piece! Cool!

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  3. I LOVE what you've started. I can't wait to see where you go with it. It is definitely freeing when you have nothing to lose (since you didn't like the top anyway). Fun, fun, fun.

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  4. To tone down the colors in a quilt top, i would overdye it a darker color. But stay tuned, as doing too much to an unquilted top can be a problem...

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