12 May 2017

Giant batiks

Today I had the entire table to myself so I decided to do two pieces that took up the whole table. One was a piece of heavy white cotton I bought at IKEA. I used it to dye a multicolored piece of cloth for a small quilt. The fabric was 60" wide and I cut it 60" long. It came out SO UGLY. I have had it folded on my table. Occasionally I pick it up and ruminate but it's SO UGLY. I saw it this morning and wanted to copy what Judith did with one of her uglies (which I actually liked).


I do not like red or yellow but when you dye using this technique, you never know what you will get. I got UGLY.


I hauled out my large electric skillet and got to work with the potato masher I affectinately refer to as the "Baked Potato".


Done


Detail


I didn't want to use thickened  dyes on this because my arm is sore from spraying so I used a bucket and followed Ann Johnston's method of one part water, one part dye solution and one part soda ash. If you want to dye and will buy one DVD, buy hers. Your life will never be the same.


Before I added the soda ash.


I decided to try the hose one more time but this time I dumped my dye bucket and filled it with water from the hose - over and over again. It was pretty well rinsed then I hung it on the line to dry a bit.


Close-up of the wet fabric. Then I boiled two kettles of water and poured from the top. That got most of the wax out.


Washed and dried.



These two are the "wrong" side of the fabric.

 



11 comments:

  1. Love it!!
    Did you use soy wax as the resist?

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    1. Yes, always. It comes right out with boiling water and the Ivory dish soap helps disperse the wax in the boiling water.

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  2. Thats a lot of fabric. I think I have two of Ann's books. Great job although it wasn't THAT ugly. :)

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    1. If it had more greens, blues and purple I would of liked it better but I am really turned off by yellow and red.

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  3. Excellent overdye and batik! I do a lot of shirts where I pour on stripes of color, rinse/wash and then loosely swirl. Then I paint on black and batch. Same kind of thing - the first dye is not pretty, but the overdye makes all the difference. With the batik, you get those colors to "pop" and the overdye separates them so they don't clash... keep it up, girl!

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    1. Thanks Judy. It was great copying Judith!!

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  4. I didn't think the original was ugly but I do like the end result much better. Gorgeous!!!

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  5. Yes! It worked! Beautiful!

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    1. I am really pleased but just wait to see what is coming up in the next 6 weeks.

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  6. That piece of fabric is certainly fantastic now!

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    Replies
    1. I have to agree. I only steal the best ideas (hehe)

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