Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Gotta love colour

On Friday my sister and I did a class with Helen Godden. She was teaching us how to dye fabric with Genesis Creations Liquid Radiance, an Australian fabric dye. It was a really fun day, and it was cool to see the different effects of the techniques. I could not replicate what I did, cos I can't remember what colours I used. I think next time I play with the dyes, I will have to take step by step pics and notes. My big sis and I will be playing with colour again, cos we couldn't resist buying the starter set.



This one is a shibori, and the one below looks a bit like a gerbera. Love the colours.

The one above uses the techniques of scrunching and squashing - isn't the terminology cool?
The next one has yellow (my least favourite colour), and uses epson salts to give the effect of coral, don't know how well you can see that in the photos.







Tie dye to look like a garden above, and grading on a slope below. If you are clever you can create sunsets, or landscapes. I just played with colour.



This last one was supposed to be a flower. I wasn't that happy with my technique, but the photo looks pretty good. If I had Helen's skill, I could do some more focussed painting to give a centre, and quilt it to really make it look like a flower. Maybe one day.



Another experiment that my sister and I will try is dyeing on a warm dry day. The day that we did the class was cool and cloudy, with showers in the afternoon. The rain was very inconvenient when we were trying to dry the fabric. Apparently warm dry days = bright colours, cool days = softer colours. The dye is really cool cos it works on cotton, polyester, silk or wool. If I never get round to knitting socks, I could always dye a plain pair, lol.

5 comments:

happyspider said...

ah it looks like you had a wild time ^_^

cat in tassie said...

Your dyeing experiments look fabulous! As I'm sure you're starting to discover, dyeing fabric is extremely addicitive, especially when you get such yummy results.

Anonymous said...

I love using Genesis paints to dye with. You get such wonderful colours and so simple to use.
Love your pieces.
Delia

Anonymous said...

Oh, they look wonderful! I'd just be leaving them around the house, so that they made me happy every time I saw them.

Swanknitter said...

Wow! Super colours! Where do you get the dyes?