The results of yesterday's dyeing

Jen (Jen's Footsteps) asked me about the dyeing that I was doing yesterday. I was testing out masking tape a resist (that's what the white lines that you saw were). I have done batik with wax but just wanted to see if I could get a similar effect (that was quicker). The results are not quite what I expected but interesting nonetheless.

It seems that it's not quite strong enough to keep the dye out, but the effects that it did create were quite interestin anyway. I just placed the tape directly onto the silk scarves and sprayed dye over them. I used procion dyes in turquoise, purple and jade. The scarves had been soaked in a soda ash/salt mixture and the dyes were mixed with paint powder (I think that because I used silk, and paint powder that I could have got away without soaking in soda ash - that's what happens when you make it up as you go along - no matter). The silk was dry when I applied the dyes.
Basically where the tape was, there are some great fuzzy lines happening. I guess this is because the fabric was dry - if it had been wet it would have seeped straight under. The areas where the silk was really saturated with dye the lines are really faint. I was having problems with the spray bottles so there are a few of these areas.
I havent' washed these yet so they may lighten a little. I'm also not sure if I'm going to overdye them - which was the original plan when I thought that the tape would leave white areas (overdye to fill the white with another colour).

Today I had a playday with the girls. We explored burning and whilst some of us had done most of it before, I think we all discovered something new. Somehow with the six of us there, the ideas grew - a real think tank. What if you... but then you'd have to... let's see if.... how about.... One thing that we were particulary impressed with was a prouct called Shrink-it. Initially we couldn't think of any real purpose for it as you can't stitch into it after it's shrunk, however Pam Sussman's Fabric Journals book has pictures of clear and stamped acrylic buttons and that's where the inspiration started. After a few samples with stamps, somebody suggested writing little phrases or messages (in reverse of course!) and then shrinking it. This is what we came up with.

As you can see these are tiny - so small this is the clearest picture I could get - but I can see many uses for these in my yet to be created fabric journals (buttons, charms, closings etc). Of course there is more sampling to be done and so sometime in the future I'll have to mosey on over to The Thread Studio to order some.

No more pics from today - we just did sampling, but as I put some of the techniques into practice I will point them out.