It's time to do some dyeing...

I started to dig out some fabrics to start work on my exhibition peices, but have found that whilst I have some great colours, there is just not enough of any of them.

Our theme is Autumn and I'm thinking of working with some gorgeous rich autumn colours - oranges, yellows, reds, burgandy, deep purples, maroons, browns and cool olive-y greens. I have these types of colours in the cupboard, but I need more and some bigger peices too.

I'm thinking of working with a range of fabrics including:

• flanelettes - because these take colour so richly and portray a warm which fits the theme well (warm days, cooler nights)
• Silks - again because they take colour so well and look bright and colourful. They also have a lovely sheen
• Cottons (Calico (Muslin in the US) or Quilters cotton - for their crispness.
• crinkle/crepe cotton - I have dyed some of this before and they came up really well
• Muslin (as it's known in Australian and the UK too I think) - this is a loosely woven gauze-like fabric and is good for overlaying/shaddowy effects.

I'm going to do some controlled colour ranges (so that I might be able to replicate the colour should I need to) as well as some colour gradations. I'm also thinking of doing some fabric painting as well as they usual dip/vat dyeing (probably with plastic bags). Painting in the sense that I choose where to put colour and control it to an extent - not as in painting pictures.

Here are some pictures of some dyeing that I did some time ago but that is similar to what I'm thinking of doing.

Colour triangle - with puree colour in each corner and combinations of the three colours in every other piece.



This is what I mean by painting...


Now I just have to make it happen.