Sun Infused Color

Remember this row of Mason Jars from yesterday filled with fabric and dye baking in the 100 sun?
Watch what happened! I can't believe the variety of color that came out of the mixes. 

The hot weather (100+) has been wiping us out around here but I've found a good use for it.  It's perfect for baking sun infused color into fabric with dye. Using the summer's heat was one of the things I learned at Judy Gula's  dye day and I placed my filled mason jars out in the sun for a day. I kept checking on them outside and loved the feeling of the hot glass with the promise of liquid color inside turning to gold like alchemy. Some of the results were quite surprising. Judy's method is from the book titled "Color by Accident" and there were many happy accidents. The distressed pieces are especially surprising and I am planning on a dye session mainly using cloths that will fray. Burlap and a particular type of cotton did this well.

These pieces  tangled up a lot in the wash, but they are worth it.
I carefully pulled and cut them apart. It was the best surprise of the lot
as I love the disintegrated effect they have. Of course, I had to
 save the tangled cut off pieces too because they were pretty too.

It was a fair amount of work rinsing out the dye and running the fabric through the wash twice, untangling the pieces and ironing them out. It gave me time to imagine what I might do with the fabric. Lot's of ideas are forming for collage work and I am toying with the idea of putting some of the pieces up for sale because I know I'll end up with more than I can use. For now, they hang on a rack, full of possibilities, reminding me of the feeling of this summer sun.

Which is your favorite? 

 

This is a piece of Jacquard Cotton that I printed numbers. I used an
inkjet printer and they held up surprisingly well. I thought for sure the
inkjet would run and muddy, but it didn't.

An old piece of lace.

I used many different textures.

The velveteen on the left is great but the purple/green floral piece
is not my favorite. I will definitely dye more white cotton velveteen.

The old chenille bedspread was found in a thrift store.

A purple/green combo that works better than the one above.
The blue cheesecloth on the right is heavenly.

Dye Day at Artistic Artifacts

Judy Gula, fabric artist and owner of Artitist Artifacts, occasionally holds a Dye Day workshop. I've wanted to go for a long time and saved up hoarded some great fabric to use. At the moment the fabric is waiting in jars in the sun for 24 hours.

We used Procion Dyes and dyed inside wide mouthed mason jars. The dyes are available online at Dharma Trading or Pro Chemical.

Some of them look muddy and some look awesome already. I can't wait until tomorrow to see what I've done.  It's a mystery.

Row of Mason Jars with Fabric and Dye

Looks like a nice purple.

Hot!

This might be my favorite in the jars. I wonder what it will look like when it's dry?
I'll show you soon.