Dye Happy 5 - Painting With Thickened Dyes

Today was session 5 of my Dye Happy class, Painting with Thickened Dyes. I found it to be a very relaxing class as almost everyone spent the afternoon painting. Once students got their design to fabric, they mixed up their thickened dyes (using Print Paste from Prochemical Dyes)and got to working painting. Fabric was soaked in soda ash solution ahead of time and line dried. The soda ash raises the pH and causes the dye molecules to bond with the cellulose molecules in the cotton. Here are just a few of the designs in progress.

Susan's spiral design:

Dorothy's bird:

David's boat:

Kirsten's poppy:

Tatiana's tulips:

Sylvia gives the crotons a try:

Textile Temptations

Last week I dyed more Textile Temptation Packs in preparation for my upcoming teaching trip. This week I ironed, cut and packaged them. My studio was filled with packages them this morning.

This is what they look like up close.

The packages contain a fat quarter of each of silk-rayon velvet, cotton, silk dupioni, silk organza, and a half meter of cheesecloth. Everything in a package has been subjected to the same dyebath, but each fibre takes the dye a little differently. I've been dyeing these for a few years now and they've been popular. Haven't shown them on my website yet, nor have I made it easy to order fabric from my website. It's great to have the fabric to take on the road with me when I'm teaching, but it would be impossible for me to constantly be filling mail orders when I'm on the road, not to mention that I can't and don't want to spend every day with my head in the dyepots. Most of the packages have food-related names ... can you tell where my heart is?
Here we have the greens, from left to right: 1) Pistachio, 2) Pesto, and 3) Mustard Pickle

Here from left to right are 1) Pomegranate, 2) Raspberry Cordial, and 3) Grape Jam

1) Butter Creme, 2) Creme Caramel, 3) Spiced Pumpkin

1) Des Bleuets, 2) Marine (couldn't think of a food this colour!)

and finally 1) Cafe Mocha, and 2) Chocolatini

One of the things I'm realizing today though is the reason I'm so busy is because I'm often dyeing fabric for a particular class, in addition to preparing to teach that class. I do this, for example, for the In Full Bloom class, to ensure there are a good variety of values for each flower. I need to think about this as I'm not getting in the studio to work on my own work much, but on the other hand I'm making a living from what I love to do. I wouldn't worry so much if I didn't have a joint show with Cathy Breedyk-Law coming up in September. I really need some new work because I'm sure folks don't want to see the same stuff as at my last two shows. Oh well, April should have a little time in it for the studio! Busy is good!

113 Meters

No, I'm not talking about snow, although it might have felt that way yesterday when I fired up the snowblower and shovel!! I'm talking about the 113 meters of fabric I've dyed in the last couple of weeks. Here it is. I was smart this time, and took up my friend Denise Cloutier's offer to iron it for me. Frankly, I was a tad whacked after just the dyeing. In record time (2 days) Denise had all 113 meters ironed. I'm still working on the velvets, organzas, dupioni silk and cheesecloth for the Textile Temptation packs. All this is in preparation for my teaching travels later this month.
To hear me talk, it sounds like I'm impressed by volume. Yup, I'm a "more is better" kind of woman" More fabric, more chocolate, more silver jewellrey. More is always better.
After yesterday's storm, my oldest kitty, Johnnie, is enjoying a nap in the sun, and I'm tempted too... If you subscribe to my e-newsletter, you may remember that 17 year old Johnnie had to retire as my studio assistant when he went blind earlier this year. He's still doing well, as long as his enviroment stays the same. Speaking of my e-newsletter, the latest issue will be available later today. If you'd like to receive it you can subscribe here.

See You in Nova Scotia

I have been looking forward to my upcoming teaching trip to Nova Scotia for some time, knowing that weather there is often incredibly beautiful in the month of September. The Mayflower Quilter's Retreat is a provincial retreat in Pictou, Nova Scotia. The dates this year are September 21-25. What could be better than a trip to Nova Scotia? Well two trips of course!! Last week I learned that I am on the faculty list for Quilt Canada 2012 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, May 29 - June 2, 2012. I look forward to meeting Nova Scotia quilters, seeing the ocean again, and eating lots of seafood. I will also be teaching at this year's Quilts Ontario/Quilt Canada conference in London, Ontario, May 24-28.

This is a Quilt

Here you can see my submission to "This is a Quilt", the 2011-2012 SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) travelling trunk show. SAQA members were invited to submit a small quilt, that will be matted to 8", and the group of quilts will travel to educate the public about the art quilt in all its variations. This gave me a chance to experiment on a small scale with all those dying hosta fabrics I had posted photos of a few weeks ago. I was reminded again how much I really prefer to work larger, but it was a good experiment and had me moving into creating hosta foliage in fall colours because that is where I am hoping to go next with a larger piece.

On the subject of "Snow Dyeing" (my last post), if you are interested in a class on snow dyeing, my friend Pat Hardie
is teaching classes this winter out of her studio in Merrickville, Ontario.

A Comparison of Low Water Immersion and Snow Dyeing

Low water immersion on left, snow dye on right.

With all the talk of snow dyeing I've been hearing lately, I decided it was finally time for me to run a little experiment to see the difference between snow dyeing and low-water immersion dyeing. So, I mixed up 6 cups of dye solution in 6 colours (terracotta, butterscotch, golden yellow, hot pink, chino brown, and a mix of half olive green and half dark green) to dye 6 meters of fabric. I used a full concentration of 1 Tb of dye powder per cup of water per meter of fabric. Yes I use urea. In all of the photos above, the fabric on the left was dyed using my usual low water immersion method while the fabric on the right was dyed using the snow dye method. For the snow dyes, I soaked dry fabric in soda ash solution for 10 minutes, wrung it out and scrunched a meter of fabric into the bottom of each container, then piled about 4 inches of snow on top. Several colours of dye (totalling about one cup of dye solution for each meter) were then poured across the snow. For the low water immersion fabrics, I started with wet fabric, poured the dyes over, and then poured a cup of soda ash solution over each. Here they are batching in my dungeon, er I mean basement.

My conclusion? I was surprised to find that the intensity of colour on the snow dyes was pretty much close to that of the low water immersion dyed fabric. Why am I surprised? Because all the experts will say that warmth is required for good colour, that batching should take place in a room that is at least 68 degrees in temperature. Well, my basement was 64 degrees that day, and even with the cold snow on top, the colour is still good. On the negative side, snow dyeing is more work. I have to fill a pail of snow and haul it down to my basement. The other down side (to me, and this will depend on your taste), is that there is less control over the finished product, such that more white spots result. At least with low water immersion, I can manipulate the fabric a bit to ensure all areas have dye on them, whereas with snow dyeing there is much more left to chance. The dye is poured across the snow, with little control in where it ends up. And I thought low water immersion was serendipitous! I think the white wouldn't bother me so much if the colour was softer, but it really stands out in pieces with very intense colour.

Blog Name Contest Closes

Back in November when I started blogging, I announced a contest to come up with a catchy name for my blog. I received many clever suggestions, and you might have wondered what was taking so long for me to make a decision. Fairly early on I had an email from artist Fulvia Luciano, recommending that I use my own name rather than a catchy name. I spent some time consulting with other bloggers and artists, and for now have concluded to not go with a catchy blog name. Why? Way back in 2002/2003 when I started my hand-dyed fabric business I started using the name "EQuarelle's Palette". It was quite difficult for folks to remember, always required me to spell and explain, and was just plain cumbersome. However, I still went ahead and bought the domain "equarelle" for my website. Today, eight years later, it is my teaching that is at the forefront of my business, and it is my name that is most important to find and remember. I don't want to make that mistake again, and I felt that having yet another "catchy" name besides "EQuarelle" is going to cause confusion. Incidentally, I have purchased the domain "Elaine Quehl", and you can now get to my website by either www.equarelle.ca or www.elainequehl.com. Eventually my website will be moved to elainequehl.com.

I'd like to credit a few of the creative individuals who came up with some of my favorite suggestions: "Acting Up" (Frances O'Neill), Natur-El (Albertina Pianarosa), "Nature Calling" (Ann Morrell), "Artist by Nature" (Sherry Boram), and Quehlude and Lady GoDYEva (my husband). Thank you so much for helping out, but at this time the meter of fabric goes to Fulvia Luciano, for it was her email that started me thinking about the whole matter of a catchy name. Oh, the other thing that I find frustrating sometimes is when I go to someone's blog and it has a catchy name but I can't figure out who the blog belongs to.

More Dye Happy 4, Flour Paste Resist

Sylvia Young just sent photos of her fabric that resulted after removing the flour paste resist. This one is my favorite. She says she used an "ugly" piece of fabric, and did her crackle pattern with an eggplant coloured dye.

What is a flour paste resist? Basically you mix up a paste of flour and water, and paint it on a piece of fabric that has been soaked in soda ash solution and hung to dry before the paste is added. The flour paste dries in about 24 hours to look like this:

Once the flour paste is dry, you take the fabric and scrunch it so it cracks, just as I am doing in this photo. I especially like this photo because it makes me look thinner than I actually am ... LOL :-))

After that you paint thickened dyes on top. The dye penetrates the cracks, so that when you wash the flour paste off you end up with a wonderful crackled pattern.
Sylvia's soy wax batik turned out great too:

as did her stitched Karamatsu shibori:

Dye Happy 4

Today was Session 4 of my Dye Happy class, and the topic was Flour Paste Resist. I can't wait to see everyone's final results next class after they have had a chance to wash them. We had a great show and tell where students brought work they created in the last class, and other dyeing projects they had undertaken since the last class. A few photos are below. There were many more that I wish I could include:
Debra Sine's gorgeous blue, grey and chino shibori scarf:

Helen Gordon's shibori scarf, using a variety of red dyes:

Some of Helen's Soy Wax Batik:

as well as Helen's folded and clamped shibori

and a piece created by binding black-eyed beans in the fabric with elastic bands.

Cut It Up!

On December 22 I posted a photo of the crotons I had just painted with thickened dyes. Even though I wasn't totally thrilled with the piece, I proceeded to free-motion quilt it (must have been avoiding doing something else), and while doing so I noticed little separate compositions in the upper portion that I liked on their own. I thought I might cut it up and make several pieces from it. Last night I started playing with a photo on-line and realized that if I cut the piece in half across the middle, and then cut the upper portion into two, I would have a nice triptych. So this is what I did, and here are the results. Now I have to deal with the issue of how to joint or mount them. That will come. In the mean time, I think I will use this piece as more than a teaching sample now. I think I'll probably hang it in my show with Cathy in September.

More Surface Design

Just put the binding on the last of the two Shiva Paintstik samples. I like to make my own freezer paper stencils to use with the paintstiks. This time it finally occurred to me that I could make hosta leaf stencils!!! And given that I love the series of fabrics I dyed for future work on a dying hosta piece, I decided to use some of these fabrics here. Yummy, I love the colours. The iridescent golds, copper and green paintstiks gave me the look I was after, and I tried combining copper and gold foil on the same leaf. I also tried adding some green foil, but that was way too overpowering and didn't work at all. Samples finished, blog post finished, and now I'm back to quilting my dye-painted crotons for Saturday's Dye Happy class.

Surface Design

Happy New Year all!! Over the holidays I worked on samples for my Surface Design class. Suddenly this class is in great demand. I'll be teaching it in Toronto at the York Heritage Guild and in St. Catherines at the Niagara Heritage Guild in February and at the Country Quilter in Richmond on March 25. All my samples are in Toronto with the York Heritage Guild so I had to scramble to come up with additional samples for the other venues.
First let me start with the samples made using Prismacolour Artist pencils. These anemone flowers started with one single piece of fabric. I drew the outline of the flower on paper, traced it to Steam a Seam Lite, fused the shape to a background fabric and used the artist pencils to create the flower. The rest is done with stitching. Normally when I use artist pencil on fabric I just fix it with a hot dry iron, but a bit does rub off during the quilting process. I experimented with textile medium and polymer medium on these and indeed it does ensure nothing rubs off. However, it does add a little bit of a haze over the piece.


Here are the samples using Caran D'Ache Neocolor 2 Water Soluble Wax Pastels (my that is a mouthful!). Better write it down if you plan to get some ... available at art supply stores. What I love love love about these pastels is that after I create my piece, I take a brush and water and all the colour blends and runs. Makes things looser and more painterly. Once it dries you can go back and add crisp lines if you want to.


Shiva Paintstik and Foil samples to come shortly.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

This is the sight that greeted me in my backyard when I got up this morning. The cardinal posed while I ran upstairs and grabbed my camera. I had to shoot it at 24X zoom to get close so it isn't as clear as I would like, but still I am happy to have had the pleasure and joy of seeing one of my favorite birds.

Other signs of Christmas? My cat, Mudgie McMenace, appears to have visions of sugar plums dancing in his head while he escapes winter under the flannel sheets.
Speaking of sugar plums, I have baked mountains of shortbread cookies this past weekend. My relatives would be very upset if I didn't arrive with shortbread! Other than that I've been working on dye painting experiments. Here's the first. Hollis Chatelain I am not! I'm finding my brush technique a little sloppy, but I imagine that is one of those skills that comes with 10,000 hours of practice! More practice to come in the new year! But these tropical crotons at least make me think of warmer climates!
ALL THE BEST OF THE SEASON TO YOU!!

Neutrals

I was just about to post about the neutral hand-dyes when this adorable (and neutral coloured) little monster appeared, walking across the keyboard, sitting on top of my mouse. Suddenly I no longer was able to type an "e"? Coincidence? Or did Kissabelle (so named for her adorable habit of licking your hands and face) smash my "e" key so I would give up and go to the kitchen and dispense tuna? A good thing that a reboot solved the problem because not being able to type an "e" when your name is Elaine could be a problem.

Some of the neutrals turned out a little pink. I used a colour of dye (Red Brown from G&S Dyes in Toronto) that I had never tried before. I do love the result, but they may be a bit pink for what I was aiming for. What I love about hand-dyes is that they are always a surprise. Something magical happens in the dyepot. You may not get what you were aiming for, but you usually love what you get. Here's the pic, taken in Italy that inspired this series. I can't stop thinking about this image.

Why I Wish It Were Summer

The tree commission is almost finished, and in between working on it, I've dyed over 80 meters of fabric in the last 4 days. But why do I wish it were summer? Because I think of how gorgeous all this fabric would look drying on the line in my backyard. Instead most of it was dried on the line in my dungeon,... er I mean basement. Line-dried fabric is much easier to iron than fabric that is scrunch dried in the dryer! I decided to get a head start as I am going to need lots of hand-dyes for sale early in the new year. I'm Shop of the Month at the
Ottawa Valley Quilters Guild on January 10, and then I'm lecturing and teaching at several large guilds in Toronto, Niagara, and Orangeville in February. BUT, I dyed a whole 24 meters for me me me, and that doesn't happen very often, but I am inspired to start work soon on my expired hostas, hopefully to be named "Curtain Call". Check out the 24 meters of expired hosta fabric. Am I a fabric pig or what? I've included one of my favorite hosta photos. My photos inspired the colours in this dyeing session.


But that's not all! I've replenished the "cool" colours in my hand-dye store, and if there are any spent hosta fabrics I can spare, they will go into the store too. Has anyone noticed that "olive green" dye doesn't look like it used to? Sometimes dye companies are not consistent with their mixes.


Ever since I taught my last In Full Bloom class and saw Jennifer working with a 3-step gradation of my pink hand-dyes (dyed from the colour fuchsia), I have been dreaming about pink. So here is a 13 step gradation of fuchsia I dyed, also for me, and some pole wrapped Arashi Shibori. Oh oh, that makes another 8.5 meters for me!!

I used my usual 9 step value gradation recipe, but to get the additional lights, I went right down to using 1/8 tsp dye powder, and for the very pale ones, using literally drops of dye. To get the darkest value I dumped a full cup of dye and a full cup of soda ash solution on only half a meter of fabric. All the books would indicate that the fabric would only take up so much dye, but you can see the darkest one is noticeably darker than the rest. And the plan for the shibori piece? Well, I am still thinking about this photo I took in 2006 in my sister's garden. A striped dahlia. I'll let you know if this idea works.

Tree Commission

I'm working on a commission that is due on December 15. A photo of the work in progress is above. The man who commissioned the piece saw my work called "Standing Still" and asked me to make something similar in different dimensions to fit his stairwell. You can see the original below. It is one of my 3 works that appears in 500 Art Quilts.

So what do you think of the commission so far? Is my sky too wild and crazy? I went with the mood I was in at the time. I'm ready to stitch!