New Work

It's Monday and here's the ice dyeing I've been up to over the weekend.  The first two pieces came from the first ice  dyeing bath, and the rest from a second  ice dyeing bath. This first piece amazes me.  The fine detail is unbelievable.  I have no idea what I'm going to do with it.  Maybe I'll just keep it around to look at once in awhile.

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At first glance, I just about wrote this one off, but by the time I had washed it with Synthopol, and pressed it, I realized that it was probably my second favourite of the bunch.  The delicate colour changes blow me away.

I have been experimenting with folding the fabric in four, and then, using the center of the fabric as a fulcrum, working in accordion folds, from both sides.  The next fold will be in  half, and will put the accordion folds to the outside, before finally introducing a fold of the entire piece and clamping it.  I think with this one, I made a mistake and ended up with one set of accordion folds to the inside and one out.  But the lace-like delicacy, and very intricate detail makes this piece special as well.

Here is a, not very good, detail shot.

I have no idea why this piece ended up darker on one axis.  But, again the delicacy really appeals to me.  Below it is another detail shot.

For the last one I used a slightly different technique. I started with the four-fold, and then continued to 1/8th fold, and 1/16th fold.  Then I started at the center, and used a Tesuji Shibori wrapping technique, before submitting the piece to the ice dyeing bath.I hope that some of the tying threads show a bit in the picture.  They do in the piece itself.

Now I really do have to take a couple of cays off.  Happy Holidays to everyone.

Holiday plans

It is great to have so much going on in the studio.  I almost feel like there are so many potential pieces of work pulling at me, that I'm just spinning in circles, and will soon just spin myself right into the ground.

But, as with most people the next couple of weeks will be busy.  Not only do we have Christmas coming up, but a couple of days later Dave and I will be celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary. We have made plans for a large family celebration dinner, and family is coming in from around the country, some of them staying with us, or at a local hotel and eating their meals with us.  With no apologies to anyone, this is going to have priority in my life for the next couple of weeks.  But--I drew up a couple of "to do" lists, only to find that most jobs have been done, and, now, I think I have until Monday to play.  There is a charity quilt on the machine, and the piece I showed in the last post is sandwiched and ready for hand work  ( Yep, I'm going to give it a try, even though the snow and cold arrived yesterday, with vengeance, and my hands really aren't happy)  I'm also hoping to squeeze in another dye bath, so that project doesn't loose momentum.  Wish me luck!

Look what I found!

I found this today in the washing machine!  I had thought there should be one more piece, but when I couldn't find it figured I was mistaken.  The colour isn't too good here. What appears as blue is actually a darker green, which is amazing as I didn't use any green dye in the dye bath.  This just reinforces my love of the serendipity of ice dyeing.  What appears as light dots or tiny squares is the imprint from the small heads of the clamps I used. I think they add a lot to the design.

I'm still trying to decide what to do with the pieces.  I found two 12" wrapped canvasses today, with matching frames.  The size will work fairly well with the smaller dyed pieces.  I'm considering basing a piece on that size and augment the dyed fabric with simple hand stitching.  Since the colours are so busy, I would try to match the thread colour almost exactly, and keep the stitches simple--possibly only running stitch, as used in traditional Kantha embroideries.

Time out

After playing with UFO's for the past week, I took a day off and did some ice dyeing. Over the past year, I have been exploring various dyeing techniques, looking for a method that can result in a mandala type of design.  Over the month of November the blog "...and then we set it on fire", discussed variations of ice dyeing.  Some of the techniques discussed lead me to give  thought to, not only clamping the fabric, but various ways of folding it prior to clamping , and dyeing.  All four of these pieces went through the same dye bath! While I haven't solved the "mandala" part of the problem, I'm thrilled with the pattern and colour that was achieved.  Here are my results.

The first three images are each about 22" square.  

This is a larger piece, about 45" square.

This next is a close up (bottom right hand corner--I think) of the one above it, as, in my opinion, the fine details of that piece are wonderful