Dye Happy, Session 5

This blog post brings to you photos from Friday's session (and the last of 5 days) of my "Dye Happy" class at Wabi Sabi.

Is this work by Barb not drop dead gorgeous? I used to teach stitch resist dyeing, but stopped because I was never happy with mine. Sylvia, who took my class on a previous occasion, gave a lesson to Barb, and look at what she turned out on her first try! Part of the secret is that it turns out far better in an immersion dye bath than a low-water immersion bath. I am going to give it another try when I have time (haha ... when is that?)

Here are some soy wax batik results.

Nancy's:

Sylvia's:

Barb's:

Everyone seems to love parfaits, and fits them in around other subjects. These are Nancy's.

Parfaits by Chris:

Marion overdyed her folded and clamped piece and is much happier to have covered up the white spots.

The masked woman is Barb!

The topic this day was Painting With Thickened Dyes. You can see a couple of pieces in progress here. This one by Heather.

This one by Nancy.

Meanwhile, I have my own firestorm happening in the dyepots. Trying to up my offerings for my upcoming three days of sales at the Festival of Quilts at the Ottawa Valley Quilt Guild's show on Mothers Day Weekend. 

Dye Happy, Session 4

Friday was Session 4 of my Dye Happy class at Wabi Sabi. It is always gratifying to see the results of the previous class. While we do various dyeing processes in class, students usually have to let them batch and wash out at home.

Several students decided to dye some silk-rayon velvet scarves using the Bomaki Shibori method.

Marion's colours are so lovely.

Sue and her rainbow scarves.

Heather and her rainbow scarves.

Barb tried the rainbow method on cotton.

Nancy's folded fabric.

Nancy's stitch resist experiment.

Marion's soft-toned two colour run.

This is Heather's beautiful stash so far.

Just out of the immersion dye bath, Sue and her pole-wrapped Arashi Shibori.

Friday's topic was Soy Wax Batik. You can see the wax melting in an electric frying pan here, and the many batiking tools we tried. The wax forms a resist that does not allow the dye to penetrate.

Sylvia sent a photo of her soy wax resist fabrics after washing out. 

Last Week's Workshops

Friday I taught Session 3 of my Dye Happy class at Wabi Sabi. The topic of the day was Shibori, so students learned how to wrap a pole and prepare an immersion dye bath. In addition, we continued with some bomaki shibori. Students brought Show and Tell from the previous class, or sent photos after the class.

These are Sylvia's stunning navy and white shibori pieces.

Marion's two colour run (using the opposites of green and violet).

Marion's tray dyeing.

Sue's folded and clamped piece (looks like eggs doesn't it?).

Oh wow, Sue's tray dyed piece!

Sue's parfaits and value gradations.

Nancy's bound bean piece.

Nancy's folded and clamped work. I adore blue and white!

Nancy's flour paste resists.

Chris' value gradation.

Barb's parfaits:

I put together a colour chart of the dyes I most frequently use. All the brightly coloured swatches on this chart make me very happy :-)

Barb focusing on painting a bomaki shibori piece.

Saturday I taught right in my own community, for the Common Thread Quilt Guild. A bright and beautiful day in a nice spacious community centre.

The topic was Liberated Radial Piecing. That seems to be popular lately.

This piece by Johanna.

This one by Laura.

Sometimes I get so engrossed in the teaching experience that I forget to take many photos!

Surface Design at Wabi Sabi

On Friday I taught my last class for 2014. For the last three Fridays I've been teaching my Surface Design class in the dye studio at Wabi Sabi. Last weekend I also had a trip to Kingston to teach my "Hosta Leaves" 101 class. There was such a fabric shopping frenzy (both hand-dyes and Northcotts) that I failed to get photographs. But back to my Surface Design class. The concept behind this class is that in each of the three days students are introduced to two Surface Design products and ways they can be used.  

Day 1 of Surface Design was learning to design and cut your own stencils from freezer paper, and then using them with Shiva Paintstiks and foils. Students also learned two other foiling methods (stamping with foiling adhesive and fusible web method).

Foiling in these two photos by Ruth 

Foiling and Shiva Paintstiks by Christine.

In the second class students learned about ways to use Prismacolor Artist Pencils and Caran d'Ache Neocolor II Water Soluble Wax Pastels. They started by shading a flower with artist pencils (starting with one single piece of fabric). I don't typically use artist pencils to create an entire piece, but occasionally I use them to tweak my shadows and hi-lights. This exercise gives lots of practice in how to do this. This is Sylvia's begonia.

Christine's rose

The Neocolor 2 Wax Pastels were used to paint a picture, and then give it a water-colour look by adding water. After it is dry, you can go back in and put some more definite lines if you like. Tulip by Christine.

On the last day, students learned how to paint using Tsukineko Inks and aloe vera gel to control value. Here you can see Christine and Nellie working with Tsukineko Inks.

Ruth, Lois, and Barb. Barb is also working with Tsukineko Inks.

Sylvia

Mary's peony with Tsukineko inks

Barb and Mary beginning work with InkTense pencils and blocks. These pencils and blocks become very intense when you add water. It also enables a more free looking design where the colour seeps beyond the line of stitching (I like to stitch something that looks like a pencil drawing and then fill in colour). 

Barb created this design using an on-line snowflake generating program.

Lois added happy colour to her machine doodles.

Nellie's work with Inktense pencils.

Of course anyone who knows me, knows that a great lunch is part of a great class. So it was lunch across the street at ZaZaZa Pizza.

My husband and I have been packing hosta patterns this past week. We had a little help from Peekaboo :-)

I hope to get in the studio this week!!