Creative Dyeing Downunder

I have been as busy as ever during our Covid 19 lock down. As well as all my normal sewing I have been doing some on-line courses.
One of them is called Creative Dyeing Downunder with Jacinta Leishman. It is conducted via a closed Facebook group which is working well and is easy for people to upload photos. Jacinta is well- known for doing the dyed silk, wool and threads that are available at the online shop called The Thread Studio.

I wasn't really going to start dyeing threads but the course was pretty cheap and it's so rare to have a class with Jacinta.

The course uses Procion dyes for cotton and Acid dyes for silk and wool. I have plenty of Procion dyes but no acid dyes so I went online and ordered some Landscape acid dyes from Kraftcolour. They have everything you need for any surface design and it came quickly too.

Landscape Acid Dyes

They had many different sets available in various colourways and I found them irresistible, so I probably bought much more than I need!

Here is some silk thread wet and ready to be painted with the silk dyes.

In my other online course, I have been taking photos of all the autumn leaves and trees that are around at the moment so I decided to stick with the theme and paint the threads with autumn colours.

I also got out some cheese waste wool that I must have bought when I did a felting course a couple of years ago and painted some of that as well.

Painting silk thread

I only used an 1/8th of a cup of water with a 1/4 tsp of dye but I had too much dye left over so I cut up some pieces of silk fabric and thought I would try dyeing that as well.


The dyes have to be wrapped in plastic and steamed to fix them, so I got out some small freezer bags to hold the fabrics.

Silk fabric preparation

Silk in plastic bags

Everything has to be in plastic because the acid dyes need to be steam set. I didn't want to use any of my saucepans so I went off the Kmart and bought a cheap electric steamer that I'll just use for dyeing.

Silk steamer

The steamer has a third layer as well but I didn't need the third one this time. I set the timer for 1 hour.

I let it cool and then rinsed it all in a colander that I also bought to use. It was amazing that no colour came running out. So different to all the rinsing that has to be done with Procion dyes.
I love acid dyes!

Here is the silk thread and wool dried.

Silk and wool dyed

Here are the silk fabrics that I dyed.

Silk dyed with acid dyes

I was very happy; there were a couple of tiny spots of undiluted dye on the fabric that weren't noticeable on the threads. When I use it for fabrics, I'll have to make sure that all the dye is completely mixed in the warm water.

I still haven't dyed the cotton threads with the Procion dye, I might get to that next week. I have my other courses to work on as well.

Bye for now,
Linda

Working in a Series

Even though the Waverley Art Quilters cannot meet at the moment, we have our program for the year so we can work away at home and share with each other via email.

We should be having our meeting tonight, so it's time to reveal what we have done. We were to choose something that we had done in the last 2 years as our inspiration and starting point.

I chose my Marimekko project as my first one in the series.

Series 1, no. 1

For my second in the series, I made the background of black and white stripes and added some more colour to the circles.

Series 1, no.2

For my third one I made the background strips much narrower and changed the colour palette of the circles.

Series 1, no.3

The narrower stripes were much harder to sew and press but I like the effect. I really love the circle colours. I don't think I have used those colours before and they feel so fresh and modern.

I put the little A3 quilts side by side to get a better idea of the series.

Series 1

We only have to do 3 in the first series, although we could continue on if we wanted. I suppose I could do circles all year and my designing skills would really expand if I did. Mmm, I actually have no idea what I would do next if I were to make another.
Would I have to keep doing black and white backgrounds or could I introduce some colour?

My son Cam is out of his 14 days isolation and the police came to the door last Thursday to make sure that he was at home and doing the right thing.

I am keeping busy doing lots of sewing plus I have signed up for 4 online courses and I am madly trying to keep up with them all. I am actually only keeping up with 3 and have left the portrait drawing class for later.

I wonder why I always over commit myself? So, even though all my activities are cancelled and I am missing having my visits with the grandchildren, I am still super busy!!

I'll write more about my online courses in another post.

Bye for now,
Linda