Jacquard Fabric paints and the gelatin printing plate

I am continuing to play with my gelatin plate and the Jacquard fabric paints.  I am using the plate that I made last march when I took the printing class with Linda Germain and it is still going strong, without refrigeration.  It just waits patiently until I am struck by the need to do some more printing!!! Such a good thing, although I think it may be time to start a-new, or at least try the re-constitution of the original plate.  I also bought some new paints from Dharma recently but this pic was made using my old (very old, 5 years maybe?) paints.

This has progressed further from this point and I have bound it (and straightened that slightly-off line on the right hand side!!) but here is an in-progress shot.  I have finished this one off with some stencils that I made and then applied the shapes to the stitched piece using Shiva (Markal) paint sticks.  This really is such a fun technique.  I'm working on another that I'll show you next time.

I'll be back.....

Experimenting with Procion MX dyes

I have wanted to try this little experiment for a long time and finally spent a bit of time the other day doing some stitching and dyeing.  First of all I took several different fabrics (cotton sateen, silk noil, silk organza, cotton broadcloth and harem cloth) and pieced them together in no particular order or size.  I then took a variety of yarns (cotton, silk, bamboo and combinations thereof) and stitched over the seam lines.  Finally, I cut the fabric up into four separate pieces and prepared my dyes.

(Oh darn, now I've managed to get the text into a 'centered' format.  sorry about that)  Anyway, I dyed the four pieces in two separate dye baths.  The first two pieces were put into the dyes as usual,  in two separate containers,  with soda ash solution added after about 10 minutes.  I then waited another 10 minutes and put the two next pieces into their respective dye containers, waited about 10 minutes and added more soda ash solution.  No extra dye for the second addition, just the soda ash.  I'm pleased with the coloration that I got and it was quite fascinating to see the way the different fabrics and yarns took the dyes. 

This last pic is the finished piece, that I call 'To See the World." 

I'm experimenting more with printing onto fabrics using fabric paints and developing those ideas.  And I'm getting back to my on-line course with the Kemshalls./  Lots to do.   I'll be back.....