Sunday, April 15, 2012

WRAP UP OF CHAD'S CLASS

.....With permission from Chad....here's my final glowing report about her fabulous workshop.

Chad instructed us always to dye starting with lighter colors, then move to mediums, and finally the darks in the last dye pot.  Here's a pile of some of my felted pieces after being removed from their 3rd dip in the pot.  Although it looks like I used black for each, that's not correct.  These pieces are wet....thus appear darker than they are.  As I recall...we used either:   black, dark brown, dark red, or forest green.


I admired how Chad's frequent use of the color black as her final dye helped to create borders on her samples.  So for this piece.....I placed a resist over the turquoise and red sections....which allowed the black to frame the design.
 At the end of day 1....these were my FINISHED felted dyed pieces.  Yes....all done on day 1!!!
Day two we worked with larger pieces.  I was sort of getting the hang of what resist tools did what to the felt by then.  Of course, there were always surprises, but working with a bigger hunk of fabric certainly provided more opportunities to control the design.  


This is one of my favorites.....I'm a geometric kinda gal.....love stripes, squares, & plaids....well, okay I like polka dots too. Abstract designs are still difficult for me to work with but if you read this blog often....you know I continue to attempt to find success using that design format.
 On the left side you can see how the clothes pins cover almost every inch of this folded felt and what the entire piece looked like as it was removed from the dye pot.  I've removed the pins on the right side...there you can begin to see the results of the cloth pin resists.
Here's the completed, unfolded piece of felt.  It was dyed 3 times....first in grey, then in magenta, and finally in black.


I have no clue yet what I'll do with it......but isn't that the fun of one's fabric quest?  Whether you are shopping online, in a quilt shop, or creating your own....the design helps inspire and dictates the use.


I had so much fun taking this workshop and gained a lot of knowledge. I fully expect to join in another class sometime soon because frankly, it's tons easier then trying to create a dyeing studio of my own!!  And...ya got a master dyer/felter right there to help guide you.


My thanks to Chad Alice Hagan for allowing me to share her process.

1 comment:

JennyPennyPoppy said...

Loved reading this post and seeing your pictures Mary. Your resist felted pieces look absolutely terrific!