New SnowDyed fabrics

The recent talk on MXDyers made me pull out the screens again. Not everything is washed yet, and some of these fabrics were dyed in July and never photographed.  We had great weather for it on Friday – the highs barely reached 60, so the ice didn’t melt as fast as it did in July. Anyhow, time for pictures! You should be able to click any of these to see larger images. Thanks for looking!

A square section of a longer piece of yardage.
The rest of these were dyed as square pieces, with fan-folds, 6- and 8-pointed folds, a couple spirals for fun, plus a square fold that I learned from Elin Noble.

There are some dark lines in the lower left corner of this piece. They are the result of letting the fabric dry with out washing it out. The blue dye, being the slowest to strike, wicked up to the top of the folds and bonded there. Not snow-dyeing in its purest form, but it adds to the fabric surface.

Above is the square fold. As you see, it was folded in half to start, so the left side is much lighter than the right. Not super-successful, but could be very interesting cut and pieced.

I was really thrilled when I unfolded this. I was afraid there was too much white in it, but it looks like a whole-cloth quilt to me.

Relative color / value

If I do this right, a picture puzzle will appear. It is a good illustration of how color appears to change depending on the colors it is near. Assemble this puzzle, but don't place one of the blue pieces that goes into one of the right-hand corners. Before you finish, hold the piece and slide it over the other blue areas. It  should look like the moving piece is changing color, because the background is changing. Interesting, I think.

Thanks again to Karen

I have posted a PDF of my snow dyeing article that was inspired by Karen at Bunk's Blog. Thank you for sharing this cool technique, Karen - my customers and friends (and I) enjoy the results very much. Here's a link to her post which got a lot of us started: http://bunks.wordpress.com/2009/01/14/snow-dyeing-and-grannyland/. Now, when I make more fabric this way, I will post more photos.
Here's a link to my article, and it's also found at right, in the links section: http://www.dippydyes.com/SnowDyeArticle.pdf

Kanzashi book news

For my long suffering customers who ordered a 'Kanzashi in Bloom' book from me at Oaks or Chautauqua: I finally got word that the publisher is shipping to my supplier on 10/19, so hopefully I should have them by the end of the month. Here's a picture:

Omnibus*

DippyDyeversity

9/5 Have spent the holiday weekend getting ready for the show at Oaks. In addition to doing some vat dyeing, I made a list of all the different products I dye and the techniques I use; it turned out to be a lot! The products include cottons, of course: broadcloth, canvas, muslin, sateen, velveteen and others; blends like cotton-linen, cotton-bamboo and cotton-silk; some pure silk, though not a lot; wool, bamboo and polyester roving for felting, and polyester yardage and pieces, including NuSuede, felt from Kunin and Lutradur in various weights.

Unusual Sights

9/29 - 30 Saw a very unusual moth caterpillar, bigger than my little finger. Did not photograph it, though I should have. It seems most likely that it was for a sphinx moth. They’re the large moths that can be mistaken for hummingbirds. I’ve seen one in the garden once. The caterpillar is a hornworm type, but the horn at the back end looked like a painted eye.
Also saw a rainbow, which we did photograph. And then I dropped my reverse stitcher, and it  landed perfectly in a crack in the floor! Silly, but memorable. One of those ‘couldn’t do that again if I tried’ moments.

Acid dyes on Radiance

9/30 or so - Have been working more with Radiance, and decided to try dyeing in in acid dyes, which don’t work on the cotton portion. Here’s a picture of both sides of samples that I dyed for discharge sampling. They are face down, with the lower left corner folded up to show the silk side. I had a DOS brain cramp and did not dye the yellows as dark as I wanted. Nothing like a visual example of sliding your decimal. The upper left piece is navy – gotta dye more of that!
*Omnibus adj (1842) 1: of, relating to, or providing for many things at once 2: containing or including many items.