Still dyeing

I have been just in a dyeing frenzy over the past few days.  I certainly have more fabric than I'll ever need for one hanging, but the ideas just keep coming. Shibori is traditionally done with indigo, but I don't want to deal with the chemicals involved in that, so have been using Procion MX, in, mainly, navy.  I want a burnt orange to use as a compliment to the navy and tried to mix that yesterday.  I had heard that orange and fuschia would work.  Nope!  Ended up with a very bubblegummy pink, so added just a smidge of navy to it to calm it down, and ended up with a strange brick-y red.  I will try again later today, once I have the stitching done on the piece.  Here are some of the pieces I dyed a couple of days ago.

My favourite is on the upper left.  The upper right is the same technique but left in the dye bath for almost 18 hours, compared to the other one, that was in for only about 2 hours.  The middle and bottom left are also the same technique, but the lower one was done over a previously dyed bit, and the background is almost a tan colour, under the navy.  On the bottom right, each one of those circles represents a button tied into the fabric before dyeing. Most of a days work.

Here are some I did yesterday.

As you can see, I've been experimenting with creating lines.  The grid pattern will be used for something other than the hanging I'm planning--not sure what--yet.  The hexagons are really neat, and I'm doing another that will be easier to use in the hanging.  Then I plan to overdye the hexagon piece with my next orange dye bath.  The red piece on the left is not really what I want, and I plan to re-do that one, too. I much prefer the lines created in that piece to the lines created in the grid ( a different stitch technique), but the piece just doesn't flow right. The piece on the lower right hasn't photographed very well, and, if I'm honest, wasn't stitched as well as it could have been.  It is very pretty, and will be fine used in smaller sections.

Obviously, I'm concentrating on the stitched resist patterns, although there is one pole-wrapped piece in the picture above. I've done more stitching in the past few days than over the past year.  There can be much more control with the stitched patterns, and I'm starting to find that I want that control.  Serendipity can be useful in creating art, but, in my opinion, reduces the artist to a technician, unless there is much more added to it, in creating a piece of art.  I feel comfortable saying that as I tend to use a lot of serendipity in my work, especially when painting and dyeing textiles. I have discovered that the ones with a bit more of intent behind tham are usually much better pieces.