At the most recent girlfriend ice-dyeing gathering, I overdyed some cotton prints that no longer interested me. Naturally a 'before' photo of the pale blue print with white stars didn't occur to me at the time.
These two after photo show the bizarre results....each side of the fabric was completely different than the other and we are still puzzled how/why that happened. The color and pattern on this - the wrong side of the print - was successful.
I considered this one - the right side - to be a mess. Some sections along the edges (not shown) were only spot dyed.
However, those barely dyed sections were brought to another Fiber Junkies meeting where we printed with thickened dyes/textile paints/and generally just played with our failed fabrics. The two leaf prints above were made that day.... At home I pinned them to my design wall where they were forgotten for a long time.
As I was gathering handwork projects to do while hospital sitting, they yelled out loud....pick me, pick me. Scooping them off the wall, carrying to the closet where I store my altered cloth.....suddenly that ugly yellow ice over-dyed fabric, caught my eye. The rest as they say is history.
There actually wasn't a whole lot of handwork on the piece, though I had originally planned to hand embroider the background. The busy ice-dyed fabric needed more texture and definition so it was machine quilted instead.
SUN DAPPLED 20" x 14.5"
Ice-dyed & eco-printed cotton, hand embroidered, machine quilted.
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9 comments:
Looks great, I love how we can go to our stash of "failed" fabrics and find just the right thing. Hope the hubby is improving.
It has such a nice warm glow to it. Sometimes it just takes awhile to make the connection between bits worked up at different times. But eventually they DO seem to get tired of waiting & get quite vocal about moving up the line. :-)
This turned out beautifully! Who would ever know how it began and "aged" into such a fine piece.
Wonderful! The hand stitching is just the right way to emphasize the leaves. Goes to show that if you let a piece " stew" long enough eventually just the right idea will come along. That top fabric would make great rocks, just sayin 😉
You create such delicate pieces. And each fabric DOES make itself known when the time is right.
Nice job turning fabric that didn't interest you into a lovely piece. Thanks for sharing.
It turned out great! Thanks for sharing!
Wow, what an incredible lesson in how things go together unexpectedly. These all look like they were made for one another; what a great backstory on how they all found their way to one another.
When I first got into dyeing fabrics, I was really smitten with those that had a lot of "action" on them. The trouble is that while these kinds of fabrics are beautiful on their own, it's very hard to effectively use them because there is so much "action." I don't know what you've figured out, but you have gotten really good at incorporating that type of textile in your work. I'm very jealous!!
Patsy....You appear to be a 'no-comment' blogger so I can't directly thank you for your kinds words....hopefully you'll see it here. I totally agree with you, it's great fun creating high energy fabrics, but then reality sets in when it's time to develop them into a project. Lot's of auditioning occurs on my design wall......as many rejections as those that work.....just play, you'll find a use for your fabrics too.
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