For the stream I used oil pastels and stitch to add depth to the banks:
Monthly Archives: March 2010
Cubist Forest – Flowers
Cubist Forest – Ferns
Cubist Forest – Mushrooms
These guys were fun to do.
I took a batik fabric, and ironed on freezer paper mushrooms. I applied Presist around the freezer paper, and then removed the freezer paper when it was dry. Then I used bleach thickened with alginate to discharge the mushroom shapes. After the bleach I used a peroxide solution to neutralize it. Finally I used oil pastels to subtly shade them, and ironed to set.
Cubist Forest – Rocks
Snow dyeing, part 4
For this piece I used my dye concentrates. Diluted x of fuchsia in y …
I soaked the yard of fabric in a solution of:
1 cup warm water
2 tbsp soda ash
1/4 tsp sodium hexametaphosphate
when the snow had mostly melted, I warmed the fabric in the microwave (2 minutes on high) then left at room temperature for an hour.
To wash my pieces, I first let them soak in a little clean water for a couple of hours. This seems to decrease the number of washes. Then I wash in cold water, extra wash, extra rinse, with a little synthrapol lf. Then I wash in hot water with detergent for two cycles.
Dye concentrates
For the next round of dyeing, I made concentrates with:
1 cup warm water
2 tbsp urea
1/4 tsp sodium hexametaphosphate
1 tsp sodium sulfate
2 tbsp dye powder (for fuchsia and yellow; 4 or 5 tbsp for turquoise – I got interrupted while counting)
Cubist forest
This is the design mock-up for a cubist forest quilt, the final assessment piece for my City & Guilds course.
It will be constructed from commercially printed, hand dyed, and hand painted fabrics. Most of the elements will have these fabrics developed further with surface treatments (stamped flowers, leaves, textures). Some of the elements (the stream pieces) will have multiple fabrics pieced together.