Becka’s Project Journal

I took a class on Tuesday night about using transfer or disperse dyes.  These are the kinds of dyes used on polyester, which is not a very dyeable fiber.  The process we used for these was to paint with them on paper.  At the strength we used them they were almost like painting with watercolors.  You could do all kinds of drips and play with salt and spray bottles to make textures in the wet paint.  I mostly used a really grungy beat up paintbrush because I wanted a lot of brush strokes and stray smears for texture.

The colors when you paint with them are very dull and in most cases nothing at all like the finished piece once it is printed.  The yellow is a deep mustard color as paint, but bright bright sunflower yellow when printed.  It is very much a leap of faith to know that what you are painting and what you will get are not going to be the same colors.  I didn’t want saturated primaries, so I dulled my colors down by adding a few drops of the complementary color to the mix – my red got some green in it etc and I mixed a custom palette before I started painting.

You paint enough paper to cover your piece of fabric.  I made 3 large sheets and a bunch of smaller ones.  Wait for everything to dry.  Then you sandwich your fabric against the painted side of the paper and put the whole thing in to a heat press.  My friend Karen has a press that is 15 inches across, so we could do 15 inch sections at a time.  16 seconds at 400 degrees and the colors transfer from paper to fabric.  It is the combination of the high temperature and the pressure of the press that makes the dyes vaporize and then re-combine with the polyester fibers.  Magic.

This is about 3 layers of printing and I printed the back as well.  The fabric is a drapy peachskin polyester.  Karen taught me how to do a hand-rolled hem, too, so I am hemming this one to wear it as a scarf.

As of tomorrow, I will have 3 art quilts on exhibit simultaneously at three different galleries.  How cool is that??

This is “Chicken Little”.  He is currently on display as part of “A Common Thread”, annual Textile Center members’ exhibition.  8″x9″, cotton fabrics with some handdyed by me, hand embroidered, hand stitched, machine quilted.  I made it originally for the MN State Fair’s “Quilt-On-A-Stick” but then I spaced out the deadline and didn’t get it turned in on time.  So I saved it so it could be in this show.

This is “Intersect”, which is on display starting tomorrow at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts for “A Foot in the Door”.  11 1/2 inches square.  My handdyed cotton, machine pieced, hand embroidered.

And this one, “Why is a Raven Like a Writing Desk?” is traveling with the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo and is currently in Tampa, FL.

I had to work for several hours today, but between work hours, I went to one of my favorite consignment shops (My Sister’s Closet), that happened to have a 50% off sale.  Got these capris for $5.  They were a little wild and a little too long.  So I stopped by the local art supply store and got some dye I was wanting to try out.  It’s called iDye and it’s like Rit (you use it in the washing machine) but does not have some of the nasty heavy metals and chemicals that Rit has.  I have all kinds of other dyes, but I really wanted to just drop this in the machine and have it come out all one nice color.  A great excuse for an experiment.

So I put the pants and another t-shirt that was pretty faded and sad looking in to the machine.  Followed the instructions all except for the part that you are supposed to catch it before it rinses and let it do another agitate cycle.  My machine drained quicker than I thought it would, sneaky thing, so mine only got a regular wash cycle.  The verdict?  Worked great!  It dyed a nice overall color.  I am happy with the shade it turned out.  The t-shirt I am still thinking about.  It didn’t dye quite as evenly and the thread stayed turquoise, so it needs some additional creative something.  The pants have been washed, dried and I cut 6 1/2 inches off the bottom and re-hemmed.

After the discharge paste dries, then you iron it on the silk setting with as much steam as you can get. It shows up pretty quickly. (But smells like warm old tuna) The stencil, I think, is beautiful. The discharge results are pretty good. It didn’t take out as much color as I was hoping. This was my first project, so I really didn’t know what to expect. I also don’t know how this scarf was dyed or even for sure what the fiber content/finsih is (the tag says 100% wool). You can see it well in the photo, but the weave is very open and kind of transparent, so I folded it up on itself to get a good picture. You can see if I put it up against white…

it nearly disappears. It is gorgeous but totally subtle. I am going to add some more to this scarf (although I am not sure what yet). Next experiment is to try it on some scraps of my handdyed cotton.

I had a comment in a previous post and I thought I would answer it here instead.
“How long does it take you to dye your fabrics? They’re so gorgeous.”

It depends on what I am dyeing. To do most kinds of silk, I can steam set it and the actual dyeing part takes about 5 minutes. First, I mix up colors. Most of the dyes I work with are in powdered form. Sometimes with silk, I use food coloring or koolaid though. Then I “do stuff” to the silk – fold it, crumple it, stitch it – anything to give the fabric some texture. Then I put dyes on it, usually with squirt bottles, so I can control where they go. I usually only mix up 3-5 colors and do a lot of blending to get everything else. Finally, I either steam set in the microwave (2 minutes) or set it with a mordant and let it “cure” for 1-4 hours. Rinse, dry and iron.

Cotton is much the same, but not steamable to fix the colors. So cotton has to sit in the dye for an hour or more.

So, it’s pretty fast depending on the complexity of the pattern I am doing. I tend to do a whole bunch of small pieces at once, so I will have a dozen new pieces but only about 9×12 inches of each one. (The photo above is acually a batch of t-shirts sitting on our back step.)