Quilting Arts TV Series 1400 Blog Hop Starts Tomorrow

Yea!  The Quilting Arts TV Series 1400 Blog Hop starts tomorrow.  Go to the Quilting Daily site to find the blog hop schedule and then hop on to the blogs listed for each day.  You're sure to find some great information and more than a few tantalizing treats.

Always remember, never fear to experiment. 

Sometimes wonderful things happen.

 © Linda Friedman 2014.  All rights reserved.

Turn Fabric Scraps into Art

If I were a betting woman, I'd wager that anyone who creates anything with fabric has a scrap bag filled with remnants of fabrics that are just too great to toss.  This construction consists of some of those prized fabric pieces in my ever growing stash of scraps.

It started with a few pieces serendipitously appearing next to each other on my worktable--a scrap of drop cloth canvas, a few mottled fabrics.  Also on the table was a collection jar of buttons.  All these items were singing to me.  Even though I was knee deep into another project, I was drawn to "play" with them just for the pure fun of it.

This remains a thought in progress.  I've thought of using it as a starting point for a larger work but am now considering surrounding it with a black border and then mounting it on a colored fabric background, making a frame and then stretching it like an artist canvas around the frame.

Here is one idea that is percolating in the mysterious recesses of my mind.

Meanwhile, I need to get back to working on a piece that has a deadline which will come all too soon if I continue to play with this piece.

One last word...Don't forget to check out the Quilting Daily blog next Friday, July 18, 2014 to start the blog hop with artists from Quilting Arts TV, Series 1400. 

Always remember, never fear to experiment.  

Sometimes wonderful things happen.

 © Linda Friedman 2014.  All rights reserved.

Experimenting with Liquid Rit Dye

Array of Six Mixed Colors

For the longest time I have been of the understanding that one should not apply Rit dyes directly to fabric, but the other day I wanted to see what would happen if I broke rank and applied the liquid dyes directly to wet fabric.  I was more than pleasantly surprised.  I was elated with the outcomes.
In a matter of a couple of hours I had produced over twenty 14" x 14" gloriously dyed fabrics.

A Sampling of the Dyed Fabrics

At the end of the following process outline are pictures of numbered fabric examples and Rit liquid colors that I used.

Let’s see...what colors did I use?

(First , I used the liquid dye, not the Rit powered dye. Next, I used a lab dropper to apply the Rit and since I only had one dropper, I had to clean it between colors. That was a pain in the neck so I am going to look for these flimsy, inexpensive, plastic droppers on-line and stock up on them for future use.)

On many of the pieces I started with Lemon Yellow and used more of that than any of the other colors because it was the lightest and could be overwhelmed by the darker colors.  I didn't measure anything.  I just dropped and swished and squished.  Here were some color combinations that were used in the examples shown:

Lemon Yellow and Tangerine

Lemon Yellow and Tangerine and Sunshine Orange

Lemon Yellow and Sunshine Orange and Scarlet

Lemon Yellow and Wine

Lemon Yellow and Wine and Navy Blue

Lemon and Navy Blue

Wine and Navy Blue

Lemon Yellow and Brown

 

The process:

1. Wash out any sizing from the fabric and thoroughly rinse out any soap.

2. Squeeze out excess water from the fabric but leave it quite wet.

3. Lay the fabric on a protected surface.  (I used vinyl because it cleans up so nicely.)

4. Randomly drop or streak colors across the fabric.

5. Scrunch the fabric to blend the colors

6. Hold the fabric up to see if the majority of white areas are gone.

7. Lightly scrunch the fabric and put it into an oven safe, non metallic container with a cover so that steam can be created.

8. Place in microwave for 4 minutes on high setting.

9. Let the container cool down a bit.

10. Rinse, rinse, rinse until water runs clear.

11. Squeeze out excess water.

12. Roll in towel and squeeze (I step on my roll) to remove more water.

13. Iron, if desired.

 To see pictures of individual dyed fabrics keep reading :-)

The next time I do this, I will have dry pieces of fabric at hand to mop up the colors on the protected surface between color changes. I used paper towels to clean up and the blended colors were pretty spectacular, so maybe they can be captured on fabric. If I do that, I will need to spray the clean-up cloth with water to help the colors blend before “cooking” them.

 Rit also has a mixing chart on their web site and I may print that out so that even more colors can be created from the ones already on hand.

Here are the numbered examples.  See below for the dye colors used in each piece.

Numbered Fabrics

 

 

 

 

Afterthought:  A friend who does not have a microwave asked if applying Rit dye directly to the fabric could be "cooked" in another way.  I have not tried the following, but it might work...

Instead of putting the microwave and oven safe baking dish into the microwave, perhaps it could be put into a range oven with the temperature set to at least 212 degrees (boiling point) and then let it "cook" at that temperature for 3 or 4 minutes.  This is merely conjecture and I have no idea how the fabric might turn out.

WARNING #1: Even though a baking dish might say microwave and oven safe, be very careful when removing it from the heating source.  Glass and glasslike products don't seem as stable as they were in the past.  Let the baking dish with the "cooked" fabric cool off a while before removing it.  These containers have been known to shatter in one's hands.  When creating any art, waiting is the hardest part, but caution needs to be the order of the day.

WARNING #2:  Do NOT use the baking dish for food after it has been used for dying fabric.  

 

"Sunshine Through a Prism"

After last week's rain that was followed by a bit of a cold snap, this morning's sun beckoned me to the garden. As I sat among the birds and the freshly washed green all around, the sun shone on little puddles that still remained from the rain. Colors from the garden were reflected in the water and danced on its surface like sunshine through a prism and I couldn't wait to turn on the sewing machine to create a work that would capture the essence of these images in the 12"x12" patchwork block below.

Sun Printing with Ordinary Fabric Paints

I found a great blog posting on CreativeTheHive.com on how to sun print with ordinary fabric paints mixed 50/50 with water. Very interesting. Check out the following blog for clear descriptions and photographs of the process.

Fun in the Sun Printing http://t.co/YTPmvu9 via @creatingthehive

I haven't tried this yet, but will test it out tomorrow and post a follow-up, hopefully with pictures to show the outcome