Friday, September 30, 2016

FIBER RETREAT WITH THE BEST BUDDIES

 Three of us fiber buddies just wrapped up 3 days of non-stop fabric dyeing on Folly Beach, SC where friend Kate has a home.  I took a zillion photos.....and will share some of the techniques we used in a few days.  My social schedule is unusually busy at the moment so for now, here's an overview.

 We had many successes, but positive results with natural dyeing using plants still eluded us.  

 The view of the river marsh from our workspace....
Most houses that are adjacent to water are built on stilts.  This provides a great area out of the elements to work.
This is probably our 4th or 5th such retreat and over time we've dyed just about every fiber material we could get our hands on.  There have been many thrift sale finds such as old linens, napkins, aprons, tableclothes, bed sheets, plus socks, underwear.  This time I brought a off white knit nightgown that Judy is holding for the photo.
What a transformation after it was ice-dyed!!
 We divvy up all the chores.......here's one of our lunches that Judy provided.
 Even though we really do work almost non-stop, we take time to walk out on the dock to view the breathtaking sunsets.
Late nights are a given as we launder and iron our treasures.  We came home with an average of 4 pounds of dyed fabrics each.  As they say, a good time was had by all!!

Other artists have been busy this week.....see their treasures here:  Nina-Marie's Off The Wall Friday, Sarah's Whoop, Whoop Friday, Crazy Mom Quilts.



5 comments:

Julie Bagamary said...

Looks like a lot of fun with great results.

Linda M said...

Looks like another successful and fun time, gorgeous sunset.

Shannon said...

Oh my goodness! Your dyed nightgown is fabulous! the orange and purple turned out so great! It looks like a fabulous stormy lightning sky. It really jumped off the page. I hope you can get some wear out of it and show it off somehow!

Nancy said...

Swoon! all that wonderful fabric plus the beautiful locale. A perfect fiber art retreat.

margaret said...

so envious would love to have been there and learnt how to dye. Wow the nigtdress is transformed. Maybe we should start building houses on slits here in the UK such problems with flooding in some areas now with global warming