Technique of the Week #31 – Decolorant
Project Hours: 3 hours
Design and Materials: 1 hour
Execution: 2 hours
In a similar vein as TOW #30, this is a discharge/bleaching paste that deposits color as you bleach. It has a citrus smell, so it was not as offensive as the regular Jaquard discharge paste.
I screened this using the silk screen I made in this TOW project. I was short on time and haven’t quilted it yet. I really liked how the color looked against this black cotton sateen, even if the sateen is a bit fuzz laden. I’m also showing you the back so you can see how much it bleached out. You need a good thick layer of this stuff to get this kind of result, there are 2 other “pulls” I did not get a good result on. Try this stuff, it comes in lots of fun colors!
Technique of the Week #30 – Freehand Discharge Paste Painting
Project Hours: 3 hours
Design and Materials: 1 hour
Execution: 2 hours
Discharge Paste STINKS….. I mean it really, really smells bad. If you can stand it in your well-ventilated workspace to work on this project, I’d suggest you give it a go. Or wear a respirator.
I freehand painted this octo onto blue fabric. Now I have tried Discharge Paste before, so that was not the technique I was trying. My previous experience has only been with screen printing with it. So, to paint it on freehand was what I was after to see if it would work.
I painted it on, and waited for it to dry and then steamed it to make the Discharge Paste work. My iron bubbled a bunch of water on the fabric and my octo came out with some neat spots. I also did not know what color the blue would discharge out as. That was pretty cool.
I can see lots of freehand work in my future… if I can stand the smell.
Technique of the Week #29 – Sticker Resist
Project Hours: 3 hours
Design and Materials: 1 hour
Execution: 2 hours
YES! It’s good to be back! This week’s technique is from the December/January 2009/2010 issue of Quilting Arts. While in Houston I had the great pleasure of meeting Enid Gjelten Weichselbaum, the author of this technique. Basically, using a “dry brushing” technique over stickers, you get some great resist effects. I used some foam stickers to spell out this phrase from H.P. Lovecraft and his short story “The Call of Cthulhu“.
Her article says that phrases are not recommended and I can see why. These small stickers made making sure my paint was clearly in all of the little nooks and crannies a bit tough. Also, if your spacing was not right, your phrases could come out jumbled and look like giant run-on sentences. I worked my phrase from the bottom up.
This was quick to do, and the stickers I used were from Michaels and only $2.99 for my small pack of them. There are larger letters and more in the scrap book section. If you have this issue, dig it out and give it a try!
Technique of the Week #28 – Custom Rust Dyeing
Project Hours: 72 hours
Design and Materials: 2 hours
Execution: 70 hours
Before you look at the number of hours this took, be advised a lot of it is WAITING. If you are not good at waiting, well, this may not be a project for you.
Everyone and their sister is rust dyeing lately. It’s pretty easy to do, and you can find lots of instructions by putting “rust dyeing” into Google, so I’ll let you do that, because that’s what I did. However, I did not just want to wrap fabric around the nearest rusty object and hope it came out nicely, I wanted to rust custom shapes. However that meant finding a steel object and cutting it to my shape and letting it rust so I could use it to dye. This is a conundrum.
My dear husband’s hobby and mine intertwined, because he uses some sheet steel in his Miniature painting hobby. The stuff he uses had a label that interested me greatly: Quick Rust™ Steel. This thin steel can be cut with scissors, and then you follow the package instructions to rust it. Using the internet rust dyeing instructions, I had a rusted composition that was rusted, and then dyeing within 24 hours. There’s lots that can be done with this using this product as your rusting base! No more random shapes, shibori method fabrics. Do these shapes look familiar? The templates I used were from a weekly quilt project in 2008.
What people say about sewing through rusted fabric is true. It’s really difficult. I had a heavy weight needle and it barely wanted to punch through. In fact, I thought my machine was acting up, when it was just the thickness the material becomes with rusting. I switched to lightweight sharps, and still my thread broke, frayed, the needle refused to punch the fabric, etc. I even picked out all of the existing stitches to put in a lighter loft batting to hopefully take the batting out of the equation. I offer this as advice to you if you try it.
Technique of the Week #27 – Stuffed Dimensional Appliques
Project Hours: 4 hours
Design and Materials: 1 hour
Execution: 3 hours
I love the work of Kathy York. She is a quilt artist who can think “outside the box” dimensionally. She’s got two rather “famous” works that have seen publication and exhibition that are dimensional. The first is Little Fish in a Big City, and th esecond is called Synchronized Swimming. You can see them here at her website.
I’m not Kathy York, and I’m not going to make a bajillion little fishes to put on my weekly quiltlet. But I wanted to get a sense of HOW to apply this idea to a quilt surface, and I came up with this stuffed tentacle. I drew a pattern, added about a third of an inch to each side because I knew stuffing it would draw it upwards, and then sewed the fabric tentacle. I added yo-yos for suckers. Pretty cool technique, sewing it down was easy using a variation of a blind hem stitch. The edge of the background quilt is not wonky, but scanning this stuffed sucker was…
I’m amazed that the cephalopod theme continues strongly so far this year! It’s a fun theme.