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!

surface design - dyeing

Thanks for the comments, guys, and the leaf will get finished.
As some of you know, I work on many projects at once and they all get finished, but I usually only do a little on each thing every week or so, so be patient.

Sunday is for surface design and last night I did a little dyeing, spurred on by the latest design matters videos.  Laura did some gorgeous dyeing and Linda used the fabric to make a small iris applique.
Serendipitously, the day before I watched the videos, I was tidying up and found a large pastel painting of an iris that I had been thinking about making into an art quilt.

As you can see, this painting is unfinished.  It also has a little kitty paw print at the top right if you look carefully, lol.  It was done a few years ago and was one of the last things I worked on at Painting.

It is nothing like Linda Kemshall's picture, being about 30 inches square and a different style, but hey I thought I would have a go.
The first piece of fabric I dyed was some cotton, about 2 metres. 
I used exactly the same method as I used here.  The only difference was that I scrunched it up extremely tight into a micowave safe pot.  I usually use glass, because I find plastic melts and wrecks the process and it allows me to check that the bottom fabric is dyed well (underneath).  I then poured the dyes on and made sure they went into the fabric folds by gently massaging.
Because I poured the dye onto the fabric, I could mix the dyes.  I just used a simple, yellow-red-blue sequence like Laura Kemshall did.

Obviously mine is quite different to Laura's for chemical reasons as I don't use the same dyes, but I did get some lovely mixing effects.  The shades are not quite right but the value changes are, so I will begin with these and tweak the shades as I go with some fabric paint and watercolour pencils.
As usual, I made too much red dye, so I also dyed up a batch of  cheesecloth/scrim

-with a little blue to make it interesting.
I also grabbed a pile of cotton scraps and did some greens to use in the landscape  I showed the beginnings of a few days ago.  I have nearly finished the background and you will see that soon.

The green batch had a lot of variation in colour and texture.  This just a few of the scraps.  They were all different pieces of cotton, left over from lots of other things and each piece took the dye differently.  I was very pleased with this lot.  And my evening's dyeing was a great success.
Even hubby took an interest, using some of my left over dye to experiment with dyeing bits of wood.

So, now I am back on line, as you see I have a ton of work!  But perhaps we'll just call it play, not work.

Creativity involves purposeful play.

  Maslow

Rust dyeing

Well, now I can say I have tried rust dyeing.
Rust dyeing is one of those things, like gelatin monoprints that you have to prepare for days in advance, which is why I never seem to get around to it.
However, I decided that some rusted fabric might go well with the Tangled Textiles theme "Tools"
So, I had a go and I liked the results.

I used steel wool (which I stole from my other half's polishing cupboard, but you can get it at the hardware, or steel wool scourers at the supermarket, only make sure you wash all the soap out as it will slow the rusting)

• First, I soaked my steel wool in a salt solution for about an hour, then poured the salty water off.
• I left my moist steel wool for a few days in a plastic tray, dampening it with more salty water, when it got dry.
• Don't leave the steel wool laying  in salty water as you will get greenish Iron Chloride instead of orange Iron oxide or rust 
• When the steel wool is falling apart, it is ready to use.  
• To damp cloth, add the rusy material and allow to leach into the fabric overnight, then allow your fabric to dry. 

  

I did not pre soak my fabric in anything, although it is suggested that you soak in soda ash before adding the rust.  (I would have used Alum soaked  fabric which had been dried)  I found that the rust was pretty permanent.

This piece of fabric was totally untreated (just rust dyed) and has been boiled a few times.

This piece of fabric was soaked in a saturated solution of Alum when dry and has also been boiled a few times.  As you can see there is not much difference, really.

This was a treated piece of fabric, like the one above, and now we come to the reason for boiling.  I did an experiment with some wax as well on the last two pieces.  However, I used what I had, just molding wax.  The problem was that the wax did not penetrate the fabric properly and when the fabric was immersed in rust, the wax could not resist properly - there was only wax on one side.  You can see above that the wax did penetrate in a few places where the fabric is white.

As well as this problem, I had trouble getting rid of the wax,  and had to scrape and boil a few times.  I think I will leave my wax experiments until I get hold of some soy wax.

As far as the rust goes, however the experiment was pretty successful and as I like the colour and texture in these fabrics, I will be doing more!

If at first, you don't succeed - try try again.

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.