My busy Dyeing day! Batik

Today I have a really busy day - dyeing 25+ metres of fabric.

I started with 12 meter lengths in Light Muted Colours

Then 12 meter lengths in Clear bright colours

Then,  it was time to play!  I had been thinking about doing some batik for a while and yesterday I borrowed a large crock pot full of wax from the school art teacher.

With my very hi tech "stamps"

First I used some fabrics that I had marbled a while back and wasn't sure what to do with them. I stamped them with my really hi tech stamps e.g a potatoe and a carrot!

Marbled fabric

Green fabric stamped with potatoes and carrots

The marbled fabric I put into a red dye bath and the green fabric in a dye bath of red and blue.  These are batching and I will wash these out tomorrow.  Can't wait to see how these turn out!

I will have to make some more ice dyes and tie dyes as well as these are selling like hotcakes!

www.jokamamotextiles.com

Happy Quilting!

Batik and Fabric Painting results

And the winners are:

 I prefer to use the TextilDesign Colorstop if I am using fabric paints,Jacquard water based resist if I am using Procion Dyes and the paintstiks for stencilling.

As you can see in the picture above, the colorstop didn't work very well with the dyes but works great with the fabric paint.

I also had some purple/pink mottled fabric that I had dyed a while back and wanted to do some batik on it:  Here is how it started out....

original colour

Added colorstop via a fern stencil and added red and red/black paint

After heat setting paint and washing

And last but not least, here is the flour paste resist with paint over it.

I will wait for a few days to let this "cure" before removing the resist.

(heat setting the paint would bake the resist and make it harder to remove)

Next I think I will have to go back to the discharging, I hear you can do that with the

flour paste as well.

Am really LOVING this low budget technique and  will get me kids to try some in the holidays.

Happy Quilting!

Flour paste resist

Today seemed a good time to get some "play" in before the Christmas school holiday rush and  having to tidy up my sewing room in anticipation of guests.

Lately, I have been experimenting with different types of resists with varying results:

I have been using Colorstop by TextilDesign and Jacquard water based resist. The fabric was then painted  with fabric paints.  The Colorstop was fantastic and as soon as I washed the fabric the original colour came to the surface.  The Jacquard resist however was not visible (after washing) from the front of the fabric and only slightly on the back.  I have done this twice now thinking that maybe I hadn't shaken the Jacquard resist properly the first time but the results were the same.  I will now try both with fabric dyes and if that doesn't work the Jacquard resist will be heading for the bin!

I also decided to try my hand at using a flour resist.  I saw this technique on the Quilting Arts dvd that a friend has lent me and it looked pretty cool.

 Mix equal parts flour and water to make a smooth paste.

 

Stretch fabric on a board and secure with clips.

Add paste to fabric and smooth out with a spatula or knife. 

 Make marks in the paste with the end of a bamboo skewer and let dry.

Once it is dry I will paint it with fabric paints then remove the resist by soaking in warm water.

I will post more when the results are in.....now to study for my Mandarin exam next week!

p.s don't forget to check out the www.quiltinggallery.com for their birthday "blog hop". 

 Lots of great giveaways to be had!

Making Batik fabric

Yesterday I thought I would try making my own batik fabric.  I got a piece of blue fabric that I had previously dyed and stamped on it using water based resists.

On the right is the Jacquard water based resist (flowers) and on the left is  colorstop by textil design.

I found the Jacquard resist didnt keep its edges very nicely although maybe I just put too much on.

Once this dried I sprayed green/blue fabric paints over the design and let it dry. Once dry, I heat set the paint and washed the piece in warm water.

front

This is the front of the piece and the Jacquard resist is nowhere to be seen whereas the colourstop clearly shows the original colour, however.....

back

Turn the piece over and the flowers using the Jacquard resist clearly show up.

Maybe I need to try this again.....any suggestions or advice would be warmly welcome!

Yesterday we had our Christmas lunch from the ANZA Quilters and we had a lovely meal and we all made a pincushion as a "secret santa" gift.

Photos to follow......

I have also been busy watching Quilting Arts/cloth,paper,scissors dvds that a friend has lent me.  Wow!  my head is going to explode with all the new ideas.  The problem is what project to start first?

LOVE LOVE LOVE the dvds!