OCTOBER - FIBER JUNKIES

 The Fiber Junkies tried to squeeze in one more outdoor day of art therapy as  the end of October nears.  As always, we had a great time after, even if we got off to a sluggish start. Member Denny is in the midst of a family emergency that may not allow her to join us for some time to come.  Being the most experimentally minded among us.....she was definitely missed.

 Though it rained all day with temperatures in the mid 50's......we soldiered on in Val's garage.  We had decided to work with resists (but as usual not all of us stuck with the theme...grinning), instead some played with whatever else we all brought.

I wanted to see if these dried pine needles would accept dye....I used thickened mx procion dye.....as of this writing, it's still batching and I'll report results asap.

 Not really having a specific agenda myself....I brought some previously dyed/painted pieces to perk up. This is National Nonwoven's Bamboo/Rayon blend that was dyed several years ago.

 Judy had been on a stencil shopping spree and generously shared them, along with leftover thinned acrylic paints.  She uses empty spray butter bottles...genius!

I used two different stencils.  While moving the stencil after my very first spray attempt....the pooled dye dripped onto the fabric. That was a tad disappointing, until I realized the sploshes actually provided interest....allowing me to be fairly sloppy as I continued altering the piece.

 This piece of Woolfelt (National Nonwoven's 80/20) was painted with acrylic several years ago.  I remember using a sheet of stick on holes (from the office supply store) as the mask.....but that's all I can recall.

 Gen had a really neat small stencil featuring scribbling.......this time I tried to carefully turn the stencil over to print using the leftover thinned acrylic dye, but basically it printed only blobs of color.  Over all thought, when this is cut up it's going to be useful somewhere.

 Val (our gracious and well prepared hostess) had mixed some soda ash to accompany the leftover thickened dyes she offered for our use.  These little squares of felted wool were soaked in soda ash and printed using the 'crackle' stencil Judy had.  LOVE the look.....As I packed up for the day, I noticed the designs were no longer very crisp....the dyes started migrating.....that may be good or bad......after batching and washing....I'll show those results.

 This is another piece of National Nonwovens Woolfelt....soaked in soda ash.  It  was printed with thickened mx Procion dye and another one of Judy's great stencils.

I may over-dye it as I'm not crazy about the felt's 'creamsicle' color.

Come back again to see the 2nd part of our Fiber Junkies 'refusal to let summer go' day......