Sunday Sampling

[WARNING.  This is a long post with lots of pictures.  If you have a slow internet link, go get something to drink.]

 

Oh boy did I have fun today!  The process-du-jour was Discharge Dyeing.  I chose a couple of solid fabrics and a couple of tone-on-tone fabrics.

And then I tried several methods of discharging.

First up is the Bleach Pen.  This pen comes with a narrow tip on one end and a brush-like on the other.  In that first photo you can see this strip that I traced through the stencil, the small orange square that I used the brush end through another stencil, and a black square on which I wrote free-hand.

The bleach needs to dry completely, so I moved on to Comet Cleanser (with bleach).

 

I brushed the cleanser through this piece of netting and also through a stencil.  Again, the solution needs to dry completely.  Waiting is the hardest part!

So, I moved on to discharge paste.  I poured a small amount onto a platter and dipped several stamps into it.  The paste is kind of a thick gel and can also be painted with a brush.  I tried some of that, too, but apparently forgot to take a photo.  Don’t have a photo of the discharge paste bottle, either!

As you can see, it can be difficult to see where you have put the paste, especially as it dries. 

Oooookay.  While we’re waiting for all that to dry I’ll let you know that Sarge and I are taking a trip this week, so there will not be a Wednesday WOW and perhaps not even a Sunday post (although) I do have something “cooking” that could be ready for when we get back).  Everything should be back to normal by the following week, so come back then.

Now then . . . back to our discharge batches.  The bleach pen and cleanser need to be rinsed thoroughly with a mild detergent.  I used hand soap and then threw them in the dryer.  The discharge paste is activated by using a steam iron.  Let’s see what we got.

  As it happens, this photo shows all three methods.  The green appears to have been an over-dye.  You can see the general shape of the stencil, but there was a lot of “creep” from the bleach pen.  It looks pretty cool,though, so I’ll count that as a win.  On the brown piece, those dots were done with discharge paste.  The rest of the fabric was heavily coated with cleanser. . . with less than stellar results!  Not a win!

Even less impressive is the bleach pen on that scrap of orange.  I mean there is NO SIGN of any bleaching!  This is one color-fast fabric!

 

 

 

 

Okay, this is more like it!  Both of these are discharge paste.  The keys are a stamp, and the other piece was done with a paintbrush.

 

And this one!  Three different stamps were used on this.  It takes a lot of practice to get the paste/gel just right on the stamp.  But I think there are some real possibilities here.

And watching how the color just disappears as you steam-iron it is really, really cool!

 

 

 

 

Since the discharge paste did so well on all the other fabrics, I had to try the orange again.  Much better.  I may return to this later.

 

Oh yes!  Remember that freehand writing I did?

It says “Love, Inspire, Create”.   What?  You can’t read that???  Well, maybe I’ll have to work on this one a bit.  And I will be doing some beadwork and/or embroidery on this next one as well.

This will be the page in my sample book.  I do like the discharge paste.  Good thing, because I have a full jar!  That flower up there seems to have potential for something larger.

There you go.  This was a busy day, but a fun one.  Remember, I won’t be here Wednesday and maybe not Sunday.  But I’ll see you all the following week.  See ya!

Wednesday WOW – September 7

Heavens!  It’s September already, kids are headed back to school, and it will be autumn before we know it.  I’ve got several quilt tops that need to get quilted this fall.  I guess it is about time to start!

First, though, I managed another finish today:

I got borders put onto the Mystery quilt I’ve been working on the past six months.  I was working at the local quilt shop, so did not get a chance to hang it up for an “official” photo.  But here it is, draped over the ironing board.  I haven’t measured it yet, but those borders added a bunch – and took forever to sew on!

I was able to get a couple of blocks done for the next quilt, just not nearly as much as I’d planned!  Ah well – it’s not like I’m getting paid by the number of pieces!

Sunday Studies

Last week I did not get very far in experimenting with Lutradur, so I decided to continue this week.  After all, who knows when I will take time to do this again?

I printed several motifs on the gessoed lutradur.  While I was at the computer, I also printed onto the piece that was “glued” to paper!

You can still see the lines from the paper, but the print was very crisp.  I cut some motifs with scissors and some with a woodburning tool.  The tool melts the lutradur and, since it is a plastic fiber, leaves a rough, hard, edge. 

The piece with paper left a very slight burnt brown color on the edges.  Hardly noticeable.

I tried a couple of fabric paints.  The light purple above is Dye-Na-Flow, and I used some Lumiere on one of the flowers.  I was concerned about setting the colors with an iron, but I did some testing and found the lutradur does fine at iron temperatures.  One thing to keep in mind, tho, is that inkjet printing is not water-fast.  It’s probably best to paint the lutradur before printing, but with careful brushwork it can be done after (you can see the difference between the left side – not careful – and the right side – careful – below).

So this is the page I ended up with.  For the text, I painted a strip of lutradur with Dye-Na-Flow and then adhered it to a page for printing the same way I did with ribbon a few weeks ago.  In fact, I think that strip was the most successful part of my experiments!  Probably because I had already learned what does not work!

So, I’ve printed, painted, stitched, and fused lutradur and I’ve got a new material for my fiber collages.  I wonder what comes next?

Wednesday WOW – August 31

This is what I worked on today

It’s the Mystery quilt and we now have all of the directions.  So, today I got the blocks put together into a top.  All it needs now is the borders.

I sewed at the local quilt shop today, and another stitcher was working on her Mystery quilt, too!  Naturally, I like her fabrics better!  Turquoise and brown . . . it looked like a chocolate mint candy bar.  Yummy!

And on a different note . . . while I was getting ready to come home, a pickup pulled into the parking space next to me.

I don’t know how far this fella rode on the side of the truck, but I’ll bet it was a wild ride!  After posing for this picture, he hopped down and took off down the sidewalk.  Maybe he wanted a ride in to the barber shop or something!

Slow Sunday

I attended a class reunion last night . . . and today things have been moving a bit slower.  There just isn’t as much extra energy as there used to be!

But I did spend some time experimenting with Lutradur.  Here is the page I printed last week.  As you can see, printing directly on the medium makes for a very subtle picture.  I cut out some of the flowers from a second print and layered that piece.  Still very subtle.

So, I thought I’d try painting the Lutradur with gesso.  I will share the mistake I made, so maybe no one else will do the same thing.

Not a very good picture, but you can see a bit of red on the left and a couple of vertical lines?  I laid the Lutradur on some scrap paper to protect my work surface.  When the top was almost dry, I lifted the Lutradur to discover that (1) most of the paper is now glued to the Lutradur, and (2) what paper did peel away left behind traces of ink – from the opposite side of the scrap paper!

So, I have another sheet of Lutradur drying on aluminum foil.  And I peeled it away after some drying time and flipped it over onto another sheet of foil.  I think there will be some very interesting effects when everything has dried.  In fact, even the aluminum foil looks interesting with the gesso that worked its way through the Lutradur!

While we’re drying gesso, I tried some Watercolor pencils by drawing a simple flower shape.  Then I used a woodburning tool to “cut” out the shape.  The tool melts the fibers and leaves a very organic looking edge, while cutting with scissors leaves a crisp edge.  After I took this picture, I was able to pull apart the few fibers holding the flower in place. 

I can see that this material has some pretty interesting qualities.  There’s lots more that can be done with this and I’m beginning to understand why it has pretty much taken the crafting community by storm!  I will definitely be playing with this some more.

As soon as the gesso is dry enough, I will do another print.  I think I’ll go ahead and print on the piece with paper glued to it, too.  Did I say it was a mistake?  No, it is an opportunity to explore!

The Thing About Paper-Piecing . . .

. . . is the –er, um – well . . . the paper!

I mean, there are bits of paper and fabric everywhere!

But, then, the end result is pretty cool:

I think I may have gotten the hang of this paper thing!

Wednesday WOW – August 24

Sheesh – hot weather is back!  I finished a couple of projects last week and seems like I just want to sit in front of a fan now!  Fortunately, that kind of feeling doesn’t last too long.

Today, I started cutting fabric for the next quilt.

I wanted to work with pastels on this one.  Definitely a change of pace for me and I had to dig pretty deep into the stash! 

I also needed my calculator to figure how many strips to cut.  Yes, I designed it in Electric Quilt.  Yes, I changed my mind after printing out the cutting plan! 

I am going to try a Disappearing Nine Patch.  When browsing through my collection of blocks and quilts, I found three  separate directions for DNP.  That tells me I really want to make that block!

Oh!  Those pretty flags up there?  That’s one of the projects I finished.  It’s a swap – I will mail mine out tomorrow, and there are two more coming to me.  Once they have all arrived, I’ll give you the full lowdown.