Tag Archives | Dyed Fabrics

Dyeing with a Buddy

By Ellen Lindner on January 28, 2022 in Uncategorized

When you combine one of your favorite activities (dyeing fabric) with one of your favorite people you KNOW you’re going to have a good day! Such was the case when my friend, Perlie, came for a dye play day. She’s an experienced dyer, but we have very different ways of working, so it was interesting to “cross pollinate.”

She loves to work with masks, because they don’t leave a hard straight edge, the way a stencil does.

She used complementary colors and just look. I love it!

Perlie introduced me to a new tool: a squirt bottle with a comb-like attachment. It’s used for adding dye to your hair and works beautifully for creating a series of parallel lines. Like this (shown wet.)

And here it is dry. Even the blobs are interesting.

I love those criss-crossed lines!

Now it’s all cleaned up and waiting for my next dye session.

Want to see my dyeing set up? Check it out on my video page.

Now to USE my new fabrics! Can’t wait!

Ellen Lindner

More Dyeing Results

By Ellen Lindner on January 25, 2022 in Uncategorized

When dyeing fabric, it’s not at all unusual for me to wash out a fabric, decide it needs more, treat it (again) with soda ash, and continue on. Such was the case with this one. The eyeballs/ovals on this piece were originally pale yellow. Well, that was just creepy! It looked like a lot of animals watching you from the dark. I added a pale blue throughout, which gave me pale green and blue “eyeballs.” Much better!

Earlier, I used the dirty stencil with clear paste to get this. I think it will be very useful as a “white.”

This one is a deconstructed screen print. At the end of my previous dye session, I had drawn some orange lines onto a stencil and let them dry. Then, during my recent dye session, I used that screen with a sort of berry color. Initially, the dry lines acted as a resist and I got white stripes. But then, they began to dissolve (deconstruct) and I got orange stripes. Pretty cool, I think.

There are so many options when dyeing fabric!

Ellen Lindner

Dyeing: How ‘Bout Some Orange?

By Ellen Lindner on January 22, 2022 in Uncategorized

I’ve been wanting to dye some luscious terra cotta and rust colored fabrics, but wasn’t having good luck with my usual primary mixtures. Therefore, I bought some “Strong Orange” and set about learning what it would do.

First, I made swatches of it mixed with each of my other colors. Yes, it took A WHILE. But, I felt like I really needed to understand the color and what I could expect from it.

I mixed about 70 of these combinations!

My efforts paid off, though, when I made this piece. It was the first thing I did with strong orange and the colors turned out pretty much exactly as I wanted. I made the two stencils with newspaper. That worked well and I like them a lot. Maybe I’ll make more durable ones next time.

I really love this fabric. (Except, I should have left more white – again.)

With my newfound orange knowledge I made a large oval stencil and got to work on the next piece. I was careful to consider how these colors would look DRY. (A very easy thing to forget or misjudge.)

This is what it eventually looked like, wet. (Yay, I did a little better leaving some white!)

And here it is dry. I’m very happy with it.

I think Strong Orange and I are going to get along well.

Ellen Lindner

Learning about Dyeing – Still

By Ellen Lindner on January 20, 2022 in Uncategorized

I’m beginning to realize that dyeing fabric is an endless process of learning. Although I can now predict much better what my results might be, I still miss the mark pretty routinely. And, of course, I’m still trying new things, so I can always count on surprises with that.

But it sure is a heck of a lot of fun. In part for these very reasons. The unpredictability is exciting. Case in point:

I was pretty happy with this print, seen here wet.

I should have remembered that the colors would be MUCH paler once dry. Indeed that was the case and I dyed it again with stronger versions of the same colors. I also covered a little more of the white with that second round.

And, it still wasn’t dark enough so I repeated the process. This time, however, I wasn’t disciplined enough to leave the white alone. So, t his is what I got.

The colors are strong, which is what I wanted, but it would definitely be more usable if I had left some white. Maybe I’ll stamp some on.

Next, I tried using clear thickened paste as a resist.

It actually worked pretty well. This is the back, shown below. The pattern shows up better than on the front, but I’m not sure how pretty it is. I think I’ll aim for a more delicate design next time.

Still learning. And loving it.

Ellen Lindner

Slicing and Dicing: Now Where Was I?

By Ellen Lindner on December 27, 2021 in Uncategorized

After starting a new quilt at a retreat, it was time to continue at home. Now, where was I? Something like this.

I studied the arrangement and knew I wanted to change a few things. (Remember the abundance of that favorite fabric bottom left?) While that was percolating in my brain, I looked for areas that needed a little more energy. I altered a few with skinny lines.

Notice the black “horizontal” line on the left of this unit. Can you see it’s been altered to be jagged? All I did was add 2 tucks in the back. That added some character, but also made the unit 1″ skinnier.

What should go where? There never seems to be a RIGHT answer. Just interesting ones. Like this top right corner. If I were to use this piece, which way should it go?

Sometimes there’s a structural reason to do things, for instance if too many seams are coming together in one spot. But, generally, I go with whatever fits best or appeals to me most at the moment. I do study things a lot as I go! (See what I did with this piece in the last photo, top right corner.)

Remember how, at the retreat, I gathered all the brightest fabrics near the center? I liked that, but realized I’d never really considered any other alternatives. Before I got too far along I decided to audition the pieces with blue in the center.

Interesting. But not better. I stuck with what I had.

I continued altering, adding, slicing when needed, and getting things to fit. Here it is nearly complete, with four big units ready to be sewn together. I was quite happy with it.

Quilting soon!

BTW (by the way,) I generally think about names as I’m working on a piece. This one reminds me of light through spring leaves. Hmm, Canopy? Spring? Dappled Light? Your thoughts?

Ellen Lindner

“Beet Salad” Complete

By Ellen Lindner on August 15, 2021 in Uncategorized

Whew! After LOTS of rearranging and trial and error, I’ve finally finished this piece. And I’m quite happy with it.

The finished piece is 36″ x 26″. It’s available for $695.

The yellow in this detail shot looks a little yellow-green, but it will show you the circular quilting pattern, done both on the machine and by hand.

I think it’s well named, don’t you?

Ellen Lindner
P.S. See recent posts about how I dyed the fabric for this, and in-progress construction photos.

An Exercise in Composition

By Ellen Lindner on July 26, 2021 in Uncategorized

As I worked on my two-colored “beet” quilt, it became obvious that composition was going to be SUPER important in creating a successful piece.

Because the yellow showed up so sharply against the reds and purples I knew the yellow circles would form the focal point of the piece and they’d need to be arranged just so. With that in mind, I arranged them first, even before all the background decisions had been made.

In the shot above, I’ve used a variety of commercial fabrics as place holders for the background (hand-dyed) fabrics I actually plan to use. It was just easier to compose against these dark colors than the white of my design wall.

Then I began to replace the initial background fabrics with my hand dyed ones. Still with just a bare bones composition.

In the shot below, I’ve settled upon the new background fabrics and they’re mostly sewn together.

Time to add some low-contrast beet-colored circles to the background. I knew they’d add interest, and they did.

But, I began to think the space just wasn’t filled enough. Did I need more circles? Or more YELLOW circles – for contrast? I played with this idea on my computer.

Hmm, that certainly filled the space more. Time to consider.

Either way, I’ll add some more low contract background circles.

Ellen Lindner

Quilt Design and Composition: Wonky or Not?

By Ellen Lindner on July 15, 2021 in Uncategorized

I’ve been having fun making units for my current quilt. It features the colors of red and yellow beets, represented by wonky circles. Follow along with my quilt design decisions.

This was an early start.

Initially, I made all the circles very imperfect.

But, as I began to play with composition I began to question this decision. The yellow parts showed up SO MUCH, and I wasn’t sure I liked the off-kilter look.

Like this:

So, I did some experimenting, leaving the interior of the circles wonky, but aligning the outer yellow rings more accurately. Like this.

I think it’s an improvement (even though the color of this photo is off.)

Next, comes composition. Some questions I’m tossing around:
– Is the composition tight enough? Do I need to bring things more to center?
– Should they overlap more? (My working title is “Beet Salad,” so I’m thinking yes.)
– Do I need more circles?
– Do the circles show up well enough? Will I need to add yellow rims to some of them?

I’m moving ahead with this and happy with my progress.

Ellen Lindner

Quilt Design: Playing with Those Fabrics

By Ellen Lindner on June 27, 2021 in Uncategorized

Earlier I showed you the fabrics I dyed in anticipation of making a beet colored quilt. Next, it was time to start the quilt design. I knew I wanted the berry-colored fabrics to be the stars, with the yellows as accents. My first thought was to piece little sharp bits of yellow, but I wasn’t sure that played well with the idea of curvy beets. So, I decided to play with wonky, improvisational circles.

Maybe something like this.

I liked it!

I’ve been traveling and I took my fabrics with me. I made a few more units while away and tried them all laid on my hotel bed.

Definite potential for a quilt design!

And then, I played some more on the flight home. It’s amazing how sharp those little kiddie scissors are.

My plan is to make a lot more units and then to start arranging them on my design wall. Stay tuned!

Ellen Lindner
P.S. I’m just gluing these circles together. Fast and easy!

Fabric Dyeing: Sometimes I Get it Right

By Ellen Lindner on June 25, 2021 in Uncategorized

I’ve shown you some of my fabric dyeing challenges, as well as over-dyed corrections. But, sometimes everything comes out exactly as I had hoped. This little scrap is one such example.

I made it with a two step process. First, I scraped dye through a stencil in a couple places. Then, I cleaned my squeegee and used the same dirty stencil for another couple of pulls with clear paste. The clear paste prints the little bit of dye caught in the crevices, resulting in a ghost image. I just love the delicate effect!

Here’s a detail shot.

Don’t you love the effect?

Ellen Lindner

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Navigation

Tag Archives | Dyed Fabrics

Dyeing with a Buddy

More Dyeing Results

Dyeing: How ‘Bout Some Orange?

Learning about Dyeing – Still

Slicing and Dicing: Now Where Was I?

“Beet Salad” Complete

An Exercise in Composition

Quilt Design and Composition: Wonky or Not?

Quilt Design: Playing with Those Fabrics

Fabric Dyeing: Sometimes I Get it Right

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