A day in each month that we all wait for.....yup...it's Fiber Junkie meeting day! Here's an overview of our very busy and productive time together. Like last month, we each kinda did our own thing....with encouragement and cheering as techniques either did or didn't work to our satisfaction.
We always begin with show and tell, along with coffee and fattening goodies....hey a gal has to keep up her strength! Denny awed us with this massive, intricately pieced quilt top. I don't know how she didn't go blind working on that black fabric!
Gen continues to be passionate about creating gift tags. She utilizes many surface design techniques on each.....making them true works of art.
She also came up with a very clever way to recycle those used tags (such as from Christmas gifts). Here she's torn pages from an old dictionary to give the back a new life. A brightly colored marker can be used to add a new greeting or name.
Val blew us away with this screen printed sheer. All of the patterns are Val originals....she has an amazing collection of silk screens of her own designs.
She also screen printed these leaves onto some heavy weight handmade paper. This is only the first step....she may indigo dye or otherwise continue to alter the paper with additional techniques.
I'm in possession of several rings of hand-dyed wool fabric samples which I thought might be fun to see how they hold up to eco-printing.
They were stacked with other fabrics/leaves/metal objects and here are some of the results. My efforts weren't very impressive this time.
Several years ago, Gen gave me a stack of rit dyed cotton batting. It's not very sturdy nor is it very colorfast.....but I decided to see if it would print anyway. I didn't use any mordant.....simply rolled it onto a wood dowel and steamed it. I got zip, zero.....nothing..... Back to the drawing board for other uses of this colorful collection!
The cotton batting was steamed in a turkey roaster in a vinegar/water solution for about 2 hours.
This was a coarse cotton......again it was steamed without using a mordant and it didn't print very well. I knew I was taking a chance without pre-treating and I simply wanted to see what might happen. I knew the leaves I used are prone to printing well.....so the importance of the mordant was a valuable lesson.
While my eco-prints were steaming and simmering....I played with the indigo vat Val had all ready for us. Knowing my love of wool, Kate brought me numerous big hunks of dress weight pieces to play with. This one was a solid white.....and this is how it looks after the strings that held the pleating came off....it's just starting the amazing transformation from green to white as it hits oxygen.
It was dipped twice.....folding in horizontal and then vertical directions....and this is what it looked like after drying.
I folded this white wool hunk on the bias.....and I should have had some help as I didn't get it tied tight enough....thus most of the white has disappeared. I'm not terribly disappointed.....it's simply a different look.
Denny played with eco-printing, indigo, and dyeing with resists.....her little successes are fluttering away in the breeze.
I'll bet you want to know what the heck this is all about??? Well.....Judy has a special way to test whether or not a piece of fabric has been soda ashed.....and is willing to help those of us who forget whether the piece was prepared for dyeing or not! She tastes it! Kate needed to know and Judy accommodated her......what a group!!!
