Finally finished: Part 2

This is the next installment in the series of recently finished work. It's called "Restructured Circles #1." I'm not sure that's the most evocative name, but it's part of a series by that name. I'm happy with both the concept and the result, and I'm looking forward to continuing this series for awhile.

The quilting is equally spaced parallel lines with a few lines intersecting at obtuse angles in the lower left. I used a mixture of variegated and light solid colored thread to create a visual variation in the quilting.

Finally finished: Part 1

This is the first of several posts showing newly finished work. This one is called "Line and Rhythm." I finished the quilt top probably two years ago, but have only recently completed the quilting. Like several recent pieces, the quilting here is very dense, about 1/4" spacing. I love the texture it creates.

I like this piece very much and have yet to make anything quite like it. I hope to get back to this sometime to use it as a starting point for a series. Actually, I can say that about several of pieces. Getting them photographed and getting some distance is allowing me to to see better what's working and what's not and to think about how individual pieces can inspire future work. Yes, of course, I know that I'm supposed to do that along the way--and I do take photos of work in progress. But, sometimes it seems that only at the very end--and sometimes only ofter considerable time has past--can I see the connection between one piece and something to follow.

UPDATED 9/21: In response to Judy's request, here's a detail shot of as well. Forgive the color balance and quality. It's an iPhone quickie.

By the time that I quilted this piece I'd switched to Aurifil 50 weight Mako cotton thread for quilting and I just love it. I was using Gutermann before. It's not bad thread per se, but the Aurifil is just so very superior. It's wonderfully fine. It feeds beautifully through the machine and there's virtually no lint (except of course from the batting). There's no local source around here that I know of so I've been mail ordering from Red Rock Threads in Nevada (redrockrockthreads.com).

Home By Another Way

The biennial  Greenbelt Community Center Artists-in-Residence show, "What Remains" opened in the first floor gallery on Aug 26 and runs through Oct 2. If you're local to the the DC Metro area do try to see this show. I think the work is particularly strong. I'm grateful to Greenbelt for the support they provide to me and my fellow artists.

"Home By Another Way," which I've worked on for more of this year than I'm going to admit (too many distractions), is my interpretation of the show's theme, "What Remains." This piece literally grew from the remains of a failed composition. It taught me a lot and I'm happy with the final work.

The three panels of the triptych measure about 6 feet across in total.

Dyeing to Discharge: Workshop samples

Here are some examples from the workshop. These are the cotton and rayon pieces. I've still got to wash and iron the silk pieces. I'll post photos of those another day.

Commercial black rayon discharged with bleach, overdyed, then discharged with thiox.

Commercial black rayon discharged with bleach, overdyed, then illumination printed with thiox and MX dye.

Another illumination print on commercial black rayon.

Commercial black cotton discharged with bleach and overdyed

Potato dextrin resist on commercial black rayon discharged with monagum thickened bleach.

Mixed cotton and 50/50 cotton/poly blend assembled, clamped, and dyed (LWI).

Clamped resist on white fabric dyed black.

Commercial black T shirt pole wrapped and bound with string, discharged in a bleach bath, then overdyed.

Dyeing to Discharge: Day 5

Well, actually this post is more like post-day 5. I'm home in College Park and exhausted. I can't figure out what I did to be so pooped except that I must have worked harder this week than I thought.

Yesterday was mostly finishing up any work in progress, washing out, cleaning up, and doing the end of class discussion. I'm still doing wash at home and will press, photograph, and share some samples over the next day or so. I'm pleased with several of the things I brought home.

My takeaways from this week include the following:

• First and foremost: I've been ignoring a really valuable design tool--discharge--because I was squeamish about the safety, mess, etc. After a week of working with this stuff and never feeling any ill effects I feel well prepared to do more discharge work, and to do it in a way that's safe.
• Tied for first: This stuff is great, but anyone using any form of bleach or reducing agent needs to wear a respirator when using it and work outside. [That goes for using Tilex in the bathroom too. Close the door, open the window, turn on the fan, wear an acid/gas respirator, leave the room when you're done, and don't come back until the smell is gone. Don't laugh. I'm totally serious. I've made myself sick in the past from chlorine and I will never do it again.]
• I'm going to try a few more experiments with MX primary combinations and work on developing a vocabulary of discharge colors, effects, and marks that speaks to me. In a lot of ways workshops like this one are like going to a wine tasting. You taste some things you like and some you don't, and after a while your palette needs a rest to recover from the over-stimulation.
• MX acid process for silk! I've got to do more of this. I've got all of the supplies; I just need to fine tune my technique. [Of course Carol teaches a 5-day action packed class just on silk, but I can't think about that now. Too tired.]
• I want to work on black and white textures through discharge. Is it really possible that there's a pleasing combination of MX primaries out there that discharges to white? It doesn't seem that way, but...
• I'm going to experiment with potato dextrin as a resist and see if I can use it in a way that works for me. I'm not really interested in slathering yardage and waiting for it to crackle, but the stuff washes out so much easier than some other resists that it's worth playing with.
• Finally, I bought some monagum [the giant PRO Chem order should arrive on Wed] and I'm going to make my own thickened bleach discharge paste from now on. No more dishwasher gel.

Bottom line: I learned some new things and a lot of good safety tips. I definitely recommend this workshop for anyone interested in working with discharge techniques. Yes, you can figure this stuff out on your own, but this is a great way to jumpstart the process and get a good and SAFE start.

Dyeing to Discharge: Day 4

Yesterday was the 4th day of class. Time is flying by--faster than usual. The sample books are all done and it will be a valuable reference. As I was replaying the day in my head last night I started thinking about the work hanging on my design wall at home. One of the things that I wanted to accomplish this week was to work on new ideas for how I would add complexity to that composition through discharge. I've got some ideas, so mission accomplished.

Yesterday we did more immersion discharge with both bleach and thiox. I also did some dye painting and printing so that I would have pieces to discharge today. One piece is a 22" x 80" piece of silk habotai that I stretched over the ground in the parking lot and rolled with thickened black dye. It's fantastic. I'm going to need to find a cracking asphalt surface at home to work on--discretely of course.

Well, I promised photos, so here's a shot of two severely bound pieces of silk before going into a thiox discharge bath.

And, this one shows two shibori poles wrapped with T shirts in a bleach bath. The brown one is mine. It has since been overdyed while still on the pole. Speaking of which, I've got to run to the studio now for the last day of class. There's lots of washing out to do this morning. Should be an exciting day with so many pieces coming to completion.

Dyeing to Discharge: Day 3

I've only got time for a quick post, then I need to get to sleep. Day 3 was good. Today we wrapped up the exploration of chlorine bleach with some work with thickened bleach using Monagum. I discharged a piece of rayon that I prepared yesterday with potato dextrin crackle. I don't think I need to do that again. It's just a big mess. Yes, it does create an interesting pattern, but one that is very distinctive--as in, "Oh look he used potato dextrin." Someone observed that while it might be obvious to other surface designers, there's a whole world of folks out there who find the crackle pattern very engaging. It just doesn't speak to me.

We also did a bit of work with thickened thiox. Now, I've done this before and always found the smell a bit overwhelming. Today we all were able to screen, print, paint, etc. indoors with no ill effects. Of course the ironing to activate the discharge was all done outside with respirators on.

After dinner this evening I spent a couple of hours stitching up a T-shirt and a piece of silk for a bit of stitched shibori tomorrow.

Learning lots and still having fun. Pictures tomorrow.

Dyeing to Discharge: Day 2

Another good day, but that's not really a surprise. I think I could actually take this class at a faster pace, but the group is a mixture of folks who have previously studied with Carol and some who haven't. Everyone has had some MX experience, so that's helping move things along.

Today we focused entirely on bleach discharge on cellulosic fiber using clamped and bound resist. All of my samples were Pimatex and Rayon. Here they are clamped and ready to be discharged.

...and then after the discharge bath and neutralizing.

The rectangular bundles are both cotton, which discharged to a rust color. The others are rayon: some from Dharma and some from Testfabrics. They discharge to totally different colors. I love that pretty much everything will discharge somewhat in bleach, but I'm really looking forward to working with thiox tomorrow because my commercial black samples discharge closer to white, leaving many more options for overdyeing. After taking the photo above all of these pieces were overdyed while still in their clamps/bundles. I'm looking forward to seeing them tomorrow morning.

And finally, no discharge workshop is complete without the view of the class hard at work with respirators on. Here we are on the loading dock at PRO Chem, which is being affectionately referred this week as the "lanai.".

Dyeing to Discharge: Day 1

It was a good day. We spent a while talking about some general concepts concerning discharge, but the real thrust of the day was making the first round of samples. We dyed samples of all of the pure MX dyes and all of the PRO Chem blacks on both silk and cotton, then discharged those along with some commercial black samples with thiox, chlorox, and deColourant (that new stuff that everyone's so excited about). I've done little tests before--a dab of bleach on the edge of a piece of cloth to predict what I might get before embarking on a broader application. But, I've never done so many samples at a time or with such a broad range of colors. It's amazing to see all of the possibilities. Tomorrow everything gets assembled into a sample book, which we'll use to make design decisions for the rest of the week.

One little technical observation from today was that bleach has an expiration date after which it really doesn't work--REALLY. We ended up with a bottle of Chlorox that expired in April. I saw hand-dyed samples dropped into a very strong bleach solution that lost almost no color. Mixing a new solution with fresh bleach make a big difference. I'll be checking my bleach when I get home.

Sorry, no pictures today. I'll try to do a better job with that tomorrow.

A week in Fall River

I'm in Fall River at PRO Chemical for a 1-week workshop with Carol Soderlund called "Dyeing to Discharge." It's hard to believe, but this will be my 5th class with Carol. I'm going to have to ask for a degree soon.

Discharge is a dyer's term for removing dye from cloth. Think of it as the dyer's equivalent of an eraser. It's among the most basic techniques, but not something that I've ever really felt that I could control to the level that I want. That's what the next 5 days will be about: really learning to control the process with different types of chemistry--reductive (thiox) and oxidative (hypochlorite)--to get predictable, reproducible results.

If you're not a dyer, a chemist, or a nerd (or a little bit of each) this might sound tedious, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Stay tuned this week to hear how about what I'm learning.