More journal themes

Last meeting, we also brought along our journals to share. The theme for July was Doors.

Tricia began by writing the word Doors all over the page, to stimulate her thinking. She started to think about significant doors she has seen. Her first door was a photograph of one from a church, which she manipulated in a graphics program.

On the facing page, she wrote words of blessing that relating to the door. I love the gorgeous texture and colour in the image. It would make an amazing textile work!
She had other doors but she hadn't yet written the words - they'll come along later.

Maz also listed words that relate to doors, with associated thumbnails, and sketched a pair of double doors.

Then she listed and sketched thumbnails of  parts of doors. Her final sketch was another door on a stone building.

The sketch was from her imagination, which is so clever. She's got a great eye for detail.

Helen found images of different kinds of doors...

 and drew a door that opened to show..

...more images of doors and a door image manipulated in PhotoShop, which shows when the first door is opened.

She began a list of words for doors and drew another door

I love the fish jumping through the porthole!

Nola began by drawing a front door with pen on salt-dyed paper. The door opens to show layers of pages underneath..

 The next page is inside the first door and some words about the door.

On the facing page is a tiled doorway opening, showing another door underneath (part of what was visible when the first door was opened)...

 On the back of that page are words about that door.

The next image shows a refugee camp, with a tiny, red, opening door on the right. The opening shows only bricks...

..but the other side has a different message...

Jan's door wasn't actually in her book; she was inspired to make a small textile art work.

Her first door, with an embellished strip and a handle made from a twist-tie, opens to show..

...a pair of doors of a woven cloth, like the opening of a shrine, opening to…

...an ethnic embroidery given to Jan by a friend. Isn't it clever?

Our theme for this month is Idiotic Flowers, chosen by Helen. It comes from a time when schools streamed people according to their academic ability. Being in the Art Stream meant you were too dumb to do Business Studies and the Business Studies people were considered too dumb to do Academic stuff like Latin. Helen was condemned to Business Studies while her friend got to do the interesting things in the Art Stream, like creating Idiotic Flowers. I'm grateful that I got to choose electives that interested me, so I could study Art and Latin and Commerce, if I wanted to. And now we all get to create Idiotic Flowers.

Jan also brought along some dyeing samples she had done earlier and brought back from the US on her recent trip. They are all silk organza, white unless indicated otherwise, dyed in different ways with the same kinds of dye.

This first one was first wood blocked, clamped and degummed. This removes the gum in some places but not others, affecting the resulting pattern. Then it was unclamped and dyed with mx Procion, 75% yellow 25% chino. Then it was reclamped and vat dyed, 50% red, 50% blue.

The second one was initially pole wrapped and degummed. Then it was unwrapped and dyed with mx Procion, 75% turquoise 24% fuchsia. Finally it was rewrapped on the pole and vat dyed 75% yellow 25% blue.

The third sample was wood blocked, clamped and degummed. Then it was unclamped and dyed with mx Procion, 75% yellow 25% chino. Finally it was pleated and tied to rope with two sizes of string, vat dyed 75% yellow 25% blue.

The fourth sample was also wood blocked, clamped and degummed; unclamped, dyed with mx Procion, 75% yellow 25% chino; pleated, tied to rope with two sizes of string and vat dyed 50% red, 50% blue.

Sample 5 was again wood blocked, clamped and degummed. Then it was unclamped and dyed with mx Procion, 75% turquoise 25% chino. Finally it was reclamped and vat dyed 75% yellow, 24.5% red, 0.5% red/brown.

Sample 6  was also wood blocked, clamped and degummed first. Then it was unclamped and dyed with mx Procion, 75% yellow 25% mixing red, and finally it was reclamped and vat dyed 90% yellow, 10% red brown.

Sample 7 was initially clamped and degummed and then unclamped and dyed with mx Procion, 75% turquoise 25% better black, Finally it was painted with vat dyes, green (80% yellow, 20% blue) and orange (25% red,75% yellow).

Sample 8 was on black silk organza. It was wood blocked, clamped and degummed twice, with very little discharge. Then it was reclamped and vat dyed, 90% yellow 10% red/brown and then unclamped, scrunched on a rope and dyed with mx Procion, 75% turquoise and 25% better black.

On sample 9, after being wood blocked, clamped and degummed,  she unclamped it and dyed it with mx Procion, 60% mixing red, 25% yellow, 15% chino. Finally she painted it with vat dyes, green (80% yellow 20% blue) and orange (25% red,75% yellow) and steamed it.

 Sample 10: After being blocked, clamped and degummed, it was unclamped and dyed with mx Procion, 50% turquoise, 50% mixing blue. Then it was painted with vat dyes, green (80% yellow 20% blue) and orange (25% red,75% yellow) and steamed to fix.

Sample 11; After being blocked, clamped and degummed, it was unclamped and dyed with mx Procion, 75% mixing red, 25% yellow. Then it was reblocked, clamped and vat dyed 50% red, 50% blue.

It's a wonderful collection of samples, because it illustrates how different procedures and dyes work together to give varied effects. The multiple processes result in complex pieces with a lot of depth.

See you next week, when we are swapping postcards again and working on our Nine Squares project.

Time flies when you're being creative!

We've been slow to share our activities lately, but we've been meeting as usual, and what exciting times we've been having!

Some of us got together last month to have a dyeing day. We used Drimarene K, a kind of fibre reactive dye like Procion. The advantage over Procion is that it remains stable in water for months, so unused dye can be stored, while the dye molecules of Procion dye begin to bond with the water molecules after just an hour or so. We all brought different kinds of things made from natural materials to dye, and the results have been as individual as always.

Bev dyed one of her linen serviettes and some damask linen. She concertina-pleated the serviette and dip-dyed it in ink and lavender. It had some embroidery as well as the lace border, which gave an interesting effect.

 The damask is much more subtle. It's hard to see in the photo, but you can see a little, on the left hand side, how the patterned damask surface took the dye slightly differently. The piece was space dyed  to give the colour variations.

She also dyed some quilters' cotton, using the space dyeing method.

I really like the muted colours on these pieces and the pattern is amazing.

 

Her remaining fabrics were silk twill. These two were space dyed again:

 The third piece was plaited:

I'd call this one her piece de resistance, if it weren't that she also dyed a white cotton blouse.

Isn't this beautiful? I really love the combination of ombre shading and the pattern at the hem.
Maz was working with cheesecloth, which she'd used for dyeing before, at a workshop.

She did a lot of stitching on her cloth beforehand, to get these amazing patterns.

She also dyed a cotton batiste scarf:

This scarf is incredibly gorgeous to wear! It may seem counter intuitive, but it feels fabulous on your skin and I think a few of us considered slipping it quietly into our bags.There was some discussion about whose clothing it suited the best!

 

This scarf is silk jacquard and, like Bev's damask, the dyeing has enhanced the pattern in the weave.

 

She also dyed some silk habotai scarves. On this one, she was experimenting with using very pale colours, rather than the intense shades she'd been using, for space dyeing. It's very subtle and interesting.

These are more of her pre-stitched dyeing. It's labour intensive but you can see the value of it on these silk scarves, can't you?

She dyed some cotton cloth as well, with space dyeing.

They're all beautiful but I especially love that last one. It was dyed by rolling the cloth around a piece of string, and then ruching the fabric long the string and tying the ends together. It's given such a complex pattern.

These silk georgette scarves of Tricia's were plaited before being dyed with a syringe.

This process works really well on light fabrics and results in three very similar scarves. The three below were done with the same technique, but one of the scarves was silk chiffon, not georgette. Isn't it interesting how the chiffon has taken the dye very differently?

 The colours are much brighter and the separation between the colours much more distinct, even though all three scarves were dyed at the same time in the same way.

Sher also dyed some silk tissue. This is very sheer silk, often used as a base for felting.

Both Tricia and Nola also over-dyed some scarves that had originally been dyed with natural materials. Sometimes, depending on the plants used, these scarves can come out quite pale or beige. Here's Tricia's, cheered up with some of the fibre reactive dye...

... and these are Nola's:

 

The third one had been dyed with blocks, giving the chevron pattern. Over-dyeing with turquoise darkened the brown but made the lighter chevrons more obvious.

Nola was mostly interested in dyeing cotton socks.

 

 Some are adult size; others are for primary school kids.

This tee was space dyed and then stitched to yield the mokume or "wood grain" pattern over one shoulder. The pattern is quite fine and doesn't show up well in the photo.

How different they all are! Most importantly, we had a fun day doing it.