Went to Power Yoga tonight after a summer hiatus. I now feel as though I am made entirely of quivering jelly so I will be curled up stitching quietly for the rest of the evening.

Another layer?

Perhaps...

9 years

Well I promised you another experiment and here it is. This was a godseye pattern bound and dyed with gold, orange and maroon.
Here is a detail that shows the way the binding reacted with the dye.

To go with it I made these vat dyes in the same colors.

I've been playing with the idea of creating dyed coordinates, one more complex along with "solids" that compliment it to sell on ETSY or at quilt shows. It seems to me that it would be a way to make hand dyed fabrics more usable for people who are making quilts.
I created another piece of pima in an autumn gradient, I really like the way this one turned out.


I am washing and drying all of the tiedyes so nothing to see there.

But this is what I'm really proud of:
Hand to God
I bought this fabric and planned this project 9 YEARS ago. I cannot begin to tell you how terrific it is to have it finished. I loved these fabrics when I spotted them in the remnents pile at Lorraines (local fabric mecca) back when we bought our home. I bought them planning to make a comforter cover, I even dyed up a coordinating solid because the two pieces weren't large enough to make it. I realized yesterday that I like the comforter cover we have just fine and I hate the look of the throw on our bed so I made a cover for it instead.
The bedroom suddenly looks so much spiffier (and less like a dorm room)
I feel vindicated!

Tiger Skin

Cool! I made a tiger skin!

The arashi discharge came out really nice, the cotton gauze discharged nicely with a diluted bleach wash. The bleach was sponged onto the wrapped fabric then I dabbed some golden yellow and camel dyes right on top of it. This dulls the dye down and tints the fabric lightly.

I had folded the fabric in half before I wrapped it and because my wrapping and binding were both so dynamically imperfect they created the tiger skin effect.

I planned to cut this fabric up to help with the background of a stalled piece of work but now I kinda hate to... but I dont know what purpose keeping it whole would serve either.

I spent the rest of the day dyeing shirts, not too exciting but satisfying in its own way.

More experiments tomorrow...

Preparing

We are expecting rain this weekend. That will actually work out nicely for me since I plan to do

a batch of tie dyes. I've gotten the shirts prepped and they are soaking in an activator solution. I also got my order of Pima cotton, 8 yards of potential in pure white I bound up one experiment and cut a few pieces of fabric to make some more vat dyes

Since I will have the dyes out I also prepped a piece of black cotton for some arashi discharge.

I'm not especially adept at arashi so this will come out more organic/dynamic than most examples of the technique. I think it will suit the purpose I have in mind for it though. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Another Day

A few more stitches...

Still getting myself back into step...