Resist

Gearing Up for New Work


Bjorkboda hanging on the shelf on the far wall.


I compost dyed these about seven years or so ago, it's been so long now I don't remember when exactly.

 
Black gutta on compost dyed silk chiffon fabric.

Look familiar???  Yes I'm finally going to work with this piece, note it's in the header of this blog and one of the main photos in my books.



Curing Pigment Painted Fabrics


Four different earth pigments were used in combination with soy milk to color this piece of cotton cloth.

I'm often asked "how long do I really need to allow for my soy painted fabrics cure before I can wash them"?  The anwser is depending on your climate/humidity a minimum of three to six weeks.


Tape was use to create resist patterns on the fabric. 

The real anwser is how long can you stand to wait?  The longer you wait the greater the permance of the dyes and pigments on the fabric.  Yes the hand of the fabric will change the longer you wait, the piece in the top photo has been curing now for about 10 years, and it's stiff enough after all of this time to almost stand by itself unaided!  I just found it this afternoon while sorting through a pile of fabrics that I had misplaced. 

Sorting Fabric



Sorting fabrics for future projects, and more specifically looking for a piece of pigment painted fabric that I've been really wanting to work with in a new project.


Rust dyed commercial fabrics from 2005/06 sitting atop a pile of hand painted fabrics from 2003-2006.  The log cabin block piece I made back in 1994 when I took a hand dyeing class from Priscilla Sage at Iowa State University.


Bound Resist fabrics, top, from 1994 and screen printed hand dyed fabrics from 2005.


Some of my older hand dyed and hand painted fabrics that I've been sorting through for various projects.
A pink piece I made from my screen printing squeegie scrapings, from a class I took with Tim McIllrath in 1994.

Compost WIP

Each piece of fabric was dyed using natural dyes, the pink was cochineal, blue was indigo, pale yellow was weld. The caramel or beige piece has already been compost dyed once but never did a whole lot for me so it's going into the pile again. I did this once before only with indigo, rust and tannin. I'm not sure how this will look it'll either be a go or a bust but first I need to add more stuff to the surface for textures, resists, and the like. This is a combination of both hand and machine stitching.