Techniques

  • Oops! Dyeing Duds

    You can’t get it right all the time.  And knowing that relieves a certain amount of any perfectionist tendencies.  I fully embrace the unexpected “mistakes.”  Like this one. This was created with a special type of interfacing stencil.  It’s shown wet here, which means it’s darker than it will be after washing. BUT.  If you…

  • “New” Fabric

    After over dyeing fabrics from previous sessions, my ordered fabric arrived and I jumped at the opportunity to make some “new fabric.”  That is, starting with plain white fabric. I had plans and was excited to implement them! This one was meant to go with a favorite fabric.  Therefore, I repeated the pattern and some of…

  • Favorite Fabrics

    I’ve had some good results with my fabric dyeing.  I was going to show you the “regular” stuff and save my favorites for last.  But who has such restraint? So here they are: my favorite fabrics from my recent bout of dyeing. For the large piece on the left below, my goal was to use…

  • More Over Dyeing

    Now that I’ve started using those new stencils I can show you my results.  I started out by over dyeing some of the duds from my previous dyeing session.  Like this one.  Not horrible, but definitely not exciting either. I simply over dyed it with the same stencil and roughly the same colors.  As you…

  • Overdyeing

    I find that the best fabric prints require about 3 or more processes.  Usually something close to solid for the background, a large scale print, and a small print.  At the end of my previous dyeing session I had several fabrics that still needed one or more additions, so I addressed those early on. This…

  • Making Stencils

    In preparation for my next dyeing session, I’ve been making stencils.  Of course, I did some of the typical sort in which you cut through stiff plastic.  Then, I learned about interfacing stencils.  These are used with screen printing, which is something I’m trying to learn more about. The basic idea is to paint onto…