Hidden Color

Hidden color found after bleaching these black fabrics.

Had some fun in the studio yesterday, prepping a bit for my upcoming Hand Stitching class.

Cut up some of my hand printed and hand painted fabrics for the two formatted sizes. One of the goals in this class to to create a hand stitched book. It was fun to imagine what I'll be stitching on these fabrics!

Also had great fun finding hidden color in my black fabrics. I used a Clorox bleach pen on black Kona Prepared for Dyeing cotton and also a black wool-poly felt blend. I love that rich brown...but the red was a real surprise!

I'm bringing lots to stitch on over the Christmas holiday. We'll be spending time with my mother-in-law...and I hope there will be some quiet moments to make some headway on samples.

BTW...only 2 spots left in the Hand Stitching class!

What If-ing Weeds Part 2

Yesterday, played with printing some weeds from my garden... doing a lot of what if-ing. In yesterday's post, I showed some of the results using Opaque Pebeo Setacolor Fabric Paint.

I also experimented with diluted Transparent Pebeo Setacolor Fabric Paint. I worked with a dilution of about 1 part paint to 1.5 parts water.

First, I just painted directly on the back (veiny) side of the weed with the large leaf; placed it on a piece of Prepared for Dyeing cotton and pressed to release the paint.

I also tried printing a leaf on some white felt.

Next, I decided to paint both sides of the leaf.

I made a sandwich...bottom layer of Habotai silk, second layer of PFD cotton, then the painted leaf with the veiny side down and finally another piece of PFD cotton on top. I used my hands to press down on all the layers. Here are the results.

Top piece of PFD cotton that picked up the paint from the top of the leaf.

Layer of PFD cotton directly under leaf picked up the paint from the bottom of the leaf.

Silk under the cotton picked up residual paint.

I noticed that the small veins of the leaf had absorbed some transparent paint so I placed the leaf down on another piece of PFD cotton and rolled over the leaf with my foam brayer.

I also tried working with the Velcro weed. I painted both sides, placed it on a piece of PFD cotton and folded some of the cotton over to get two prints at the same time. I did this a few times.

I can see that there are a lot of possibilities. I'm planning to take a large piece of fabric, a plastic drop cloth and my paints out to the garden to do some plein air printing. Who knows where this is leading exactly...just gotta keep what if-ing...