Dyeing delights

We're at the stage of selecting and ordering the fabrics for our schools art/science project. Dyeing will loom large, both disperse dyeing of synthetic fabrics and reactive dyeing of natural fabrics. In the picture the three left hand fabrics and synthetic and the one on the extreme right is cotton. The top row have been disperse dyed and the bottom row treated with reactive dye. We chose polyester crepe de chine from the top row because as you can see, it took the disperse dye best.

You asleep yet?

If you're still awake and alert you will have spotted synthetic fabric number three (dark green) masquerading as a natural fabric. That's because it's rayon, made from treated cellulose (wood pulp to you and me). Now aren't you glad you dropped by?

We wanted to give the kids a 'spot the synthetic' game to play so we'll have them reactive dye both the cotton and the polyester. As you can see in the bottom row the polyester crepe de chine stays obligingly white as the driven snow, thus identifying itself as the synthetic.

The cotton however will take a bit of disperse dye, albeit not so strongly, but we'll leave that experiment out. Don't want to confuse their tiny minds.

So 60 metres of fabric to be measured and ripped...here we come!

State the bleeding obvious why don't you?

Here's my cropped and reframed piece of work. Have to admit it does look better. Decided it needed a nice new title to match. Used to call it Thinking Back because the bloke looks as if he is thinking and you can see the other bloke's back. Nothing if not pragmatic.

My dearly beloved finally came up with the new title. Stringfellows. Why? Because they are fellows and they are made of string. Don't you just love him?

heart felt

My green charity wool gauge swatch did felt after a fashion and I quite like it. It's certainly softer. It was too small before felting so I've gone up a hook size. Actually thought it was now too loose but I'll bash on and and chuck it in the washing when it's finished.

Making Waves

We had a lovely cycling adventure on the island of Bute today the highlight of which was leaving the harbour.........just as the Waverly decided to enter the harbour. Playing chicken with the world's last sea going paddle steamer is not our idea of fun, so we backed off. Great photo opportunity though.

Lucky find?

I was passing a charity shop the other day, these boys were sitting in the window and, wouldn't you know it, they ended up coming home with me. It IS wool, but that kind of itchy, scritchy wool that feels as if it still has some lanolin in it. Either that, or it's been stored in the back of a chip shop. Nice.
I'm being unusually sensible I'm going to do my gauge swatch and machine wash it. If it doesn't come up to scratch - or should that be if it doesn't loose it's scratch - it will be continuing on it's journey via the next charity shop I pass. Lifetime's supply of dodgy wool anyone?

In a spin

My next schools project, beginning after the summer, is a cross curricular art/science deal to make collaborative kinetic mobiles from fabric and wire. As usual, I don't have a clue what I'm going to do. I sat down with my box of bits last night and am pretty pleased with the results. This was a collaboration between myself and my dearly beloved. He did the engineering bit, I did the art. It consists of some stiffened fabric shapes (ignore the holes - aerodynamics to me is how many bars of bubbly chocolate you can stuff in your mouth at once), some washers for weight and a lo-o-o-oong spring. The fabric shapes twirl and birl from of the top of the spring to bottom, pushed by the washers which make a great sisly wizzly noise as as added bonus. Turn it upside down and it siszles and twirls back to the other end.









Sometimes it goes quite fast!

There is a wonderful blog called Bent Objects. The other day he published a mini working with wire tutorial and this is my first attempt at a wire drawing. Harder than it looks although I must say the resemblance caught in this self portrait is uncanny.

Off to play with my twizzly thing again. Auch, I just adore it!

Think Pink

I discharged this one for half an hour but it was just too wishy washy for me so I did it again overnight. Seems to be they will go so far and no further, regardless of how long you leave them. Think of bleach and you think of white but white just isn't in the spectrum with this kind of discharge.

I got the message a few t-shirts ago about not having the lighter patterned emphasis around the belly. No matter how small your belly might be, it's not a good look. You want the eye to be drawn upwards so wrap your belly safely in the middle of the discharge ball.

Getting shirty

I've been at it again. Bleach discharging Tesco T shirts. I tried something different this time. I rolled them up in a vegetable net. I've been collecting vegetable nets since the beginning of time in preparation for the great vegetable net famine which I'm sure is just around the corner. Nice to be able to use one at last.

It inspired me to use another for something else. To encapsulate my latest beach combing collection in order that it can come in the bath with me and have a wash. Was going to put it in the dishwasher but wasn't quite sure how I would explain a sand blockage to my dearly beloved. He would be bound to blame me no matter how fervently I denied it.

In the photo you will see my shrine to sea glass. Three of the best bottle neck rings I've ever found. One still has the stopper in. I found it while having a brush with mental illness and remember thinking if I can get this to unscrew maybe I can get my head to unscrew too. And here I am today, straight as a dye, picking up broken glass off the beach and collecting it in vegetable nets.

Anyway, I digress. I also used a different method of tying. Three giant Lakeland plastic bag clips and I really like the combination of what looks like deliberate and random marks.

I thought the back of this green one was groovy so I repeated the recipe on the front of this purple one and left it all afternoon while I went to work. Five hours later, here it is and I think it's my favourite so far. Will try leaving them all longer in the bleach future.

Bag ladies

I have complete exhibition fatigue at the moment. I just can't work up the enthusiasm to get things framed. If they don't sell, they lurk about being heavy and awkward and getting in your way every time you go into the shoe cupboard. What? You don't keep your unclaimed art in the shoe cupboard? How bizarre! Don't your shoes complain?

I've had this idea in my mind for a while as a way of displaying stitched sketches. The organisers can either hang them on the wall by their handles or stand them on any availbe space as bags. The purchaser, should anyone be daft enough, can use them or display them or whatever. I would quite like to work on starting with the same brown paper base but appliqueing things to them to make them a bit more durable. Might do that next time.

Environmental art

We haven't had all that many adventures to add to our culinary tour of Scotland so for this year, but we had a doozey today. We visited what used to be the Royal Hotel at Tignabruich. Its new owners had made it look very exclusive and it was. But there was also something fishy about it. You could have fish, fish or fish. No chips. Always a bad sign. You could have the set menu of soup, fish and pudding or the a la carte which was fish. A large portion or a small portion, but still fish. And just fish. If you want to go a la carte, your whole table had to do it. No cheapskates were aloud to have the set menu. And no, you couldn't have the soup first. That was on the set menu. Fawlty Towers eat your heart out!


The beach however was a mecca of finds and environmental art. We found an installation already made. It really did look arty although it looks like a random, windblown collection in the photo here. I added a rusty park plug to it set off with a piece of matching china.


Found a great rusty, old engine too.
Next door to the fishy hotel there was a retailing throwback. A traditional drapers and clothiers. Shut unfortunately with this FABULOUS point of sale thread display lying on the counter. It was a big drum full of small reels of thread and had the shop been open I would have made them an offer.

I Found three of these which I believe are collector's items. Do you know what they are? Old lemonade bottle stoppers.

Despite your fishy lunch, we did find some things to make us smile.

Art/science

I've been preparing for another meeting with the school about the art/science project. I've also been collecting random images that inspire me and many of the structures are thread based.

That the dyed fabric will be our starting point is a given but there is nothing to stop us turning our fabric into yarn by ripping it up. Part of the science aspect of the project is changing the nature of things, like when a solid becomes a liquid. I would say this is the textile equivalent, wouldn't you?

Jury Schmoorie!

Many thanks to Helen S for this great link that fast forwards you to the gallery without any of this selection committee nonsense!

Cut to the chase

I have an exhibition coming up which I wasn't going to submit for because I haven't made anything new this year. But then I had a notion to cannibalise an old piece by chopping off it's heads and feet. Thought I would look at some of the possible chops here and see if anything grabbed me. Whatd'ya think?

Body image

Back to the bleach discharge again. Especially as the Tesco vest tops are now down to £3 each! I wanted to do something that looked a bit skeletal. You can see my spine here and you can see my fried eggs, so I guess I'm getting there.

Surprise!

Here it is! A knitted dishcloth gone wrong that turns as if my magic...
















..into a baby jacket. Isn't Elizabeth Zimmermann wonderful?

I don't actually have a cold baby to hand and was looking for a charity project to sent it to. Anyone any suggestions? Thanks.

Overdyeing

Here are a couple over over dyed bags. Nice, I like them. I make these calico bags every time I make a piece of textile art, to carry it to exhibitions in. If it sells, I get the bag to take home. I used to always write my name and addy in large indelible letters on the front. Not so hot if you're just doing your shopping and don't actually wish to give every passer by full contact details. You can still see the writing but have to strain to read it. Only very determined, eagle eyed passers by will be able to stalk me now.


I still have some undyed bags which will be good for showing the kids before and after samples.

Next day dyeing

This is a piece of silk after 5 hours....


















This is a piece of cotton after 21 hours. Well, I was up early. The definition is sharper in this one and the colours brighter so I guess the length of time you leave it to cure does make a difference. Also as the author of the book Magic Dyeing made Easy, Helen Deighan points out, after 24 hours your dye is completely exhausted so you're not discharging an active dye into the environment.

Good experiments and good fun. Feeling a lot more positive about the whole project.

More dyeing fun

I dyed an old calico bag with what was left from my experiment this morning. I'm going to overdye it a nice, sharp green in places. I had forgotten how much fun dyeing is!

Magic Dyeing Made Easy

Many thanks to my good buddie Maggie who recommended this book for dyeing with children. You know the kind of thing, dissolve children in boiling water and apply to fabric. Only joking. I'm not really the wicked witch of the north.

I found plastic bag dyeing to be remarkably mess free, fuss free and simple. The instructions were to leave your bags to cure for 24 hours (hah!). I lasted one hour and here is the result. Not too dusty. I have left some comparative pieces still curing until tomorrow

Dyeing with the ravening hordes is beginning to look as if it might be possible after all. Many thanks to Maggie (and Helen Deighan who wrote the book).

The results

Synthetic fabric stiffened with PVA. A bit wobbly and very plasticy. Wouldn't be my fabric of choice.












Cotton. The firmest of all the fabrics.














Silk. The lightest of all the fabrics. Good results all round. Shiny one side, matt the other. The silk picked up an amazing amount of detail. You can see the embossed writing from the bottom of the lemon tray on this one. And yes, the whirlies so whirl when you blow on them.

At least I have something to take to the planning meeting tomorrow. Feel a bit better prepared now.