I could start at the very beginning, I hear it's a very good place to begin, but I'm not Maria, and you really do not want to hear me sing! How about I go back a couple of weekends, and start with the workshop I took with Catherine Nicholls - "Thread to Dye For". Anytime I get to dye something is fun, and this was no exception! Catherine started us off with some colour theory, and then we got into the really good stuff! (Not saying the colour theory wasn't good - it was excellent, and set us up for having fun experimenting with the dyes and colours etc., it just wasn't messy, and I gotta admit, I like messy!) We did some low water immersion dyeing, and added a bit of fabric just to soak up the excess dyes in our pans. You should be able to see in the following pictures that we had a couple of different types and weights of thread to dye, as well as some cotton twill tape.
I started off with my primary colours, with yellow in the middle and red on one end and blue on the other and got this - pretty cool, although next time I'll see if I can end up with some yellow in the middle!
I then decided to try different blues (a turquoise, a navy and some black) with the yellow to get different green shades. This was also effective!
 |
| you can see the different thread types - the middle two have a nice luster to them, while the top and bottom pieces appear flatter. |
Aren't they pretty? Next time, I'll work the dye in a little better so I don't have those white heathery areas.
I had a piece of fabric in with this batch, and got this pretty piece
After soaking some of the twill tape in some soda ash solution, I added it to the bottom of the tray, along with a skein of thread, and just let them sit and soak - I love the colour I got on these!
My final experiments were on the red - blue side of the colour wheel. Again, I played with different colours of blue and the black again, but this time with the red, and got this pretty bunch of thread, fabric and twill tape.
Now, the challenge will be to actually incorporate some of this fun into some of my quilting and art work, which will justify me making some more!
Speaking of challenges, Catherine has challenged the group of us to a challenge, using the theme Signs and Symbols. She'll work with us through the design, development, and creation process, which should be really interesting, and helpful. As as much as I love a challenge, I really need some work on how I approach them!
Happy quilting!
9 comments:
lovely colours
They are gorgeous, that does sound like a fun work shop.
I am still a bit stuck in my course. I should give catherine a heads up. I have until may to finish. I love the hand dyed thread. I should make some more, but you know, maybe I just need to use what I have first!
Beautiful! And now you have the fun of using them!
What a treat these are! Can't wait to see what comes next!
Okay, I wasn't going to ask 'cause I wasn't going to get involved with yet another thing, but... What kind of thread and where did you get it? Twill tape I got figured. :O
Wow! Those threads look amazing. I like messy, but I have never attempted to dye anything.
Scrumptious threads and fabrics and I'm sure that you'll be up to the challenge. Not long now until I get to take a class with Catherine as she is over here in April.
Beautiful!
Post a Comment