Dyeing for fun: a play date for grownups

    Nothing like a play date for this blogger, especially with clever art quilter Susan. We had been talking about how we were not going to get into dyeing fabrics for our art quilts, but we found two simple ways to do it, neither requiring rinsing or breathing loose pigments.
    Susan ordered several bottles of Adirondak color spray ink, put drop cloths on the floor and table, set up a drying rack and a back screen. We squeezed the water from and laid presoaked white cloths, silk, cotton, and white on whites on papers in the protected area, picked up bottles in analogous colors and sprayed. Then we squished the fabrics in the palms of our rubber-gloved hands and hung them on a rack to dry.
    I had taken some Createx air brush paints that you also do not need to wring dry or rinse . We folded dry PDF cloth (prepared for dyeing) into different origami types of configurations as one does in tie-dye, then bound the pieces with rubber bands. We laid them on another piece of fabric and squirted transparent air brush paints into the folds of the fabrics. Then we put the fabric into plastic bags for an overnight rest. In the morning we will see our results, drying them further and ironing to soften. Marquetta Bell-Johnson in her Hand-Dyed Quilts book recommended using these paints.

click to enlarge

    Before going over to Susan's, I collected materials and ran across a Better Homes and Gardens magazine article to remind me I had once before dyed fabric, back in January 1978. Our family created simple crayon batik pictures and I sewed the panels together for a window treatment.