Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Green to Dye For

I am posting this on Creations by Nina Marie, go by there and enjoy what others are doing!
http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/2013/03/studio-pegboard-for-off-wall-friday.html

A couple of months ago, I purchased a bolt of white, or what I thought was plain white muslin fabric, from Mia's.  It was cheap enough and had been washed due to a leak in her front window that occurred during a hurricane.  When I used a piece of it, I realized it has some sort of a pattern on the front, and had actually been wrapped inside out back on the bolt.

I kinda forgot about it, and tore a strip off to do the green thing with yesterday.  So soaking in the pot, scrunched up was this piece of what I thought was plain white muslin.

Swirled mess
To dye this I wanted to try do do snow dyeing, but of course, we have no snow.  I used ice cubes instead.  I scrunched the fabric up with my fingers and place it into the pot.  I wanted a small pot to contain the fabric, since it was just a small piece.  And I tossed in a number of ice cubes and sprinkled my powdered dyes on top of the cubes.

The Procion Dyes I used were blue, yellow and red.  I put the blue on first, then the yellow and added the red as an afterthought.  What exactly I was thinking escapes me now, but red was added.    I then put the pot outside on top of the recycle bin to keep it away from basset noses.

About an hour later, Frank brings the pot in to me and is swirling the melted ice water around. After berating him for moving MY STUFF, I put it carefully back on the recycle bin and left it out there overnight in the rain storm.  A really bad rain storm.  It was under the car port so it shouldn't have gotten any wetter than it already was.

Wet is always much darker than dry
At some point, I did think about having all those dyes swirled together like that, but was unable to affect anything at that moment, so I ignored the thought.

When I poured the dye water out this morning, I thought I had a nondescript green mess.  But when I laid it out on the trees to dry, I noticed the red parts, and decided it might have been a good idea to have that in there.

When it dried, and for some reason the dogs didn't bother this at all (I am totally amazed at that!), it looked very very interesting!

The front of the fabric had these stupid flowers on it, the ones I had forgotten all about.  But the back......oh my.......the back was incredible!






I saw leaves all over the back, in real leaf shapes, like a dense jungle of bushes and trees 




Large leaves and small leaves.......LEAVES!













I think I am seeing my green piece for the Fiber Group, baby!  You bet!










4 comments:

  1. Ah, darling, you have the luck of the Irish and your own personal leprechaun named Frank!

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  2. Gee I like the stupid flower side....

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  3. I never buy white fabric unless I can get it on the cheap, but I especially love the ones with a white design on it because it DOESN'T dye in my Dylan die. I'm not much on flowers either, but it still looks good!

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  4. What a fun time you had! It makes me want to try the dye process sometime. Come see me at "Off the Wall Friday!" too.

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