Dyed batting

Because I am quite mean with my supplies, or perhaps I just believe in saving money, I like to use up every scrap and if you quilt, you will know how many batting scraps that are not much use it generates!  I don't throw these out and use them for stuffing toys and also, for needle felting.  Of course they are not a particularly interesting colour for  using for needle felting, but they felt extremely well.
I have covered this topic before and you can find a tutorial here.
I have had some landscape ideas in my mind for a while and of course hand dyed felt and prefelts are available, but it is so easy to dye batting (cotton only) and the colours are glorious!
So yesterday I did a huge batch of scraps.

I throw in every little bit, as you can see.  With this batch, I used two colours in each jar and scrunched the damp batting quite tightly.  This gives the mottling in the colours.

Here are some of the colours I got.  Most cotton batting has a thin layer of scrim, or polyester fabric, like a stabiliser on the back, which will not dye.  So the batting has a front and back side.  the back side is very pale.  But I don't find this a problem when needlefelting with the batting.
Here is an example of a batting landscape

The batting has only been 'tacked down' or lightly needlefelted at this stage, and will merge more with more work, but you can see how those murky colours turn into great landscapes.

I will also show you a sample handbag I put together for a workshop I intend to teach later in the year.  I will post the step by steps later this week.  I took lots because I will need them for the workshop.

Happy creating!

The foundation of it all

I have decided, whilst I have been sick, to start a new project to help me stay organised.
I'm calling it my Textile and Mixed Media Sampler Project.  Or TAMMS for short.  Some people may remember that I started my blog to keep me on track with my art.  As usual, I started with good intentions, but got distracted along the way, as you do.
Each month I am going to post about different categories of Textile and Mixed media techniques.  I have broken the techniques up into categories and I will have one post on a technique in each category per month.  I will also link to previos posts on techniques that are relevant.

The categories are:
Foundations - the base I start work on
Fabrics and textiles - the stuff I use
Surface design - What I do to the surface of my media
Fabric manipulation - the way the media are changed to create dimension and texture
Embellishments - The little bits that decorate the work
Machine work - including free machine work and other sewing
Hand work - Embroidery and couching and such
Finishing - The way that the piece is displayed
Design - elements and principles that go into a piece of work

Each month I will use what I have made to create one or more collages and journal quilts.
At the same time, I am putting all this into an interactive database with pictures, reference and some videos, so that when I am finished, I will have a wonderful resource.

Anyone out there can contribute to the project, on my facebook group, Fibre art and free machine embroidery., which I originally set up to host tutorials, but haven't done so, yet.  The page is open for anyone, but I do not want any advertising or politics, please.

There are no rules as such, and no committment to producing anything (except for me of course), but your contributions and examples of your samples are welcome.

I planned to begin on the first of November, but what's a week anyway, so here is my first post on,

Foundations.

This month's foundation is painted batting.  Batting scraps are something we all have and paints of one kind or another are usually about or easily obtained.
I have also monoprinted on batting here.

Here is my piece of batting, about 9 inches square, rinsed in water and wrung out before starting.

For this sample I am using watered down acrylics in bingo marker/dabber bottles, but fabric paint (I would not use watercolour) could be used and a little sponge to dab the paint on would work fine.

I started with purple, dabbing it on the smoothed out batting.

Then I kept going with the other colours.  Although I overlapped the colours, I tended to keep each colour in a particular area as you can see.

Then I scrunched up the batting and rolled it around to blend the paint a little.

This is after rolling it around.  on the left is the scrim side (most batting has a very light non woven on one side which the fibre is needle felted into, this is called scrim) and on the right is the other side, which has blended nicely.  I even like the way there are white areas, where it was not totally wet in the initial dousing.

Here it is after drying.  I can be very impatient, so I ironed it between two piees of my fabric for dyeing, and it left nice little pale dots of colout all over the cloth.  Two for one!  You will notice, that I have opted for a more subtle colouring than what I began with.  This is why I used damp fabric, to allow the paint to spread and move and thereby become more what I would like a foundation to be.  This is the base layer, which may or may not be seen in a finished piece, so needs to be less vibrant.
There are probably as many ways to paint batting as there are bloggers out there, so make it your own and do it your way.
Sorry about my photos today, they seem a little more blurry than usual.  I will have to check the camera.

So that is my first post on FAMMS.  I must tell you I do not have any finished piece in mind at present, but one will occur to me over the next few weeks, I'm sure.  Have a go and post your batting picture in the group, or not, it's up to you, but-

BE happy creating whatever you do.

To dye another day

Today was dyeing day.  This is a day when I play with colour.

Someone asked me, why do I do these experiments with different techniques.  I do them as part of the art process.  I might not see the relevance of a particular texture or colour now, but the samples become a reference so that when I am working on a project, I can choose the technique that fits in with my theme or which makes most sense.  I suppose Icould go trawling the net for ideas, but this interrupts the creative process and nothing beats actually doing, seeing and feeling the end product myself.
Sometimes, an experiment with a technique will actually suggest a piece of work to me, so for me experimentation is the key.

Above are my basic tools.  Dye, Gloves, protective surface and dye.  I use Rit Dye because It is freely available and I loosely follow their low water immersion technique.

Here are a variety of fabrics, soaking in warm water prior to dyeing. They include hessian (the aqua fabric, also called burlap), scrim, cheesecloth, cotton and batting scraps (cotton and bamboo).

I use glass jars for my dyeing, these are around 500ml or 2 cups.  I use glass, because I find the microwave step tends to melt plastic, and glass washes clean after dyeing.

I am accurate in my measurements in that I only use a teaspoon of the dye powder in these jars.

I also usually start with the three primary colours, red, blue and yellow.  This is firstly, cheaper and secondly allows for more experimentation with blending. I have added about 200ml of boiling water to the jars above.

Here I have split each dye between two jars, so I have some left to mix together later.

Here I am adding scraps of batting to the three dye baths.  You can see that the colour is being taken up already.  I microwave on high for 1 to two minutes depending on how many jars I put in the microwave.  After microwaving, I use the tongs you see (the fabric is very hot and so is the jar) to squeeze excess dye out of the fabric, rinse under cold water till the water runs clear, then dry the fabric.

Here I am mixing up orange, green and purple.  Orange is 1 part red to at least three parts yellow.  Green is 1 part blue and two yellow and purple is 1 part red to three parts blue.  What I have found, is that the red is very strong, whilst the yellow is very weak, so be prepared for this.

And here is my basic colour wheel in batting.  I like to dye batting to use in machine embellishing.  It does not always take the dye evenly and this gives it depth.

Now, I am adding cotton fabric, scrunched up.

I don't mix the fabric around, but just let the dye soak up from the bottom, then microwave.  This leaves undyed areas that can be dyed over later.

In this picture, I am doing the same with scrim, which is very useful in embellished and stitched collages.  It has some transparency, but takes up dye well.
So that is the basic technique, except of course for rinsing, drying and pressing.
So let's have the eye candy.

 Cotton, loosely bunched, dyed with red.  You will find that even though the red is stronger, it is not as colour fast.  If you know anything about quilt history, you will know also that the fastness of red has always been an issue.

 A selection of batting scraps dyed with straight colours, except for the taupe one in the bottom left, which was spotted with many colours of dye, then microwaved.

 A selection of batting scraps dyed several times with green, yellow, and a mixture of red, blue and yellow which makes brown (diluted).  In the bottom right corner are lots of tiny scraps, I use these in landscapes as grass, and tree trunks etc.

 Cotton, dyed with blue, loosely scrunched.

 Scrim, double dyed with blue and purple

 Scrim, double dyed with blue and red.

 Synthietic curtain lace and binding strip, dyed with diluted orange.  Synthetics do not take up the dye well.  I treated this sample with alum when the dye was washed out.

 Batting scraps dyed with blue.  compare them with the original dark blue batting scrap at the bottom.  The dyebecome more dilute as you use it.

 Scrim, dyed with purple and green.

 Hessian, or burlap dyed with blue and red.

 Cotton dyed with purple and green (my favourite mixture) Theone on the right used a more dilute purple mixture.

 Cotton dyed with red and yellow.  Sometimes, when dyes mix together, the dye can precipitate out, creating specks on the fabric.  This is what made the brown spots.  They make a nice texture and make it look rusted.

The final, pastel sample is using leftover green, red and yellow, now very diluted.  It is not spectacular, but I can see it in some needleturn applique roses in the near future.

I hope you enjoyed my little dyeing escapade.  As usual, this experiment simply gave me more ideas for further experiment down the track and provided a large stash of fabrics to use in collage. 
My actual dyeing time was only a few hours, but all the photography took a long time and as usual I am late posting.  But it was worth it.

The creation of art is in our own hands.