Saturday, 27 February 2010

Caustic soda and teabags

Nickie and I haven't had a chance of a play day for ages and today was the first Saturday that we both had free so........



I got out all the necessary equipment and covered the table,



made up the dye baths and waited for Nickie to arrive. We were going to have ago at rust dyeing ala Lynda Monk, but as the solutions were still a bit warm we started with some printing first. We have been inspired by the work of Jenny Langley a member of Fibrefusion. At TIF last week she told us how she does her work-food for thought and lots of discussion on the journey home from Cottenham.On Monday Nickie stitched away to make a motif inspired by pig wire, this was gong to be the motif for printing with. Oil paint was spread on paper and the motif placed on top with fabric. As we don't have a printing press, we used my Big Shot, which is what I had offered to lend to Jenny last year when she was talking to us about her project. The Big Shot would have been too small for her work, but for us it was just right!





I didn't get time to stitch a motif, but we will be doing this again so I shall make one for next time.
We were both very excited by how well the printing turned out, even hubby was impressed when he came in to make coffee for us.
It was then on to rust dyeing. One dye bath contained a mix 0f teabags and caustic soda and the other ferrous sulphate we made a lovely mess, but oh what fun we had!!!
We dyed mainly Tyvek as material didn't seem to be reacting, just as we were tidying up we had a good result with the fabric so we will explore this another time.

We double dipped all the pieces and have got some wonderful colours. Hubby supplied us with yet another cup of coffee and then we just had to have a cream cake or two as well ;0)
This is how the table was after we had finished playing but it was soon cleared away.

It is the first time Nickie and I made sure we wore our rubber gloves all afternoon, we shall be doing this again but we will wait for the summer so we don't have to use hair dryers to dry the Tyvek.
One of my favourite pieces of Tyvek, which I have now coated with acrylic wax and I'm now waiting for it to dry.

This is the only piece of rusted fabric that worked.
We ran out of time to try the Dragons Blood ink and the iron gore ink that I have recently brought- next time!

5 comments:

LOVE STITCHING RED said...

Oh Sharne, what a fabulous post. Thank you for all the photos. The printing looks great and so do your rusted things. Look forward to seeing MORE!

Genie said...

Hi Sharne
looks like you had a great time yesterday. all looks wonderful.

JP said...

You obviously had a brilliant day - I had a similar one witha friend this week - 2 of you does make it more exciting doesn't it?!

stitching and opinions said...

Excellent. I am very envious of having someone to work with, as I can rarely get myself started on dyes etc. on my own

Diane Kelsey said...

Wonderful printing and dyeing samples. Getting worried about producing my fabric for the 5 Day Challege now. Lots of competition for the rest of the group, with all your skills.