Chocolate, Anyone?

So here are the first at-home, in-my-new-studio shiboris, since taking Jan Myers-Newbury's class in Eugene. As always, I experimented with a number of different things during the process.

The first is that I used a bit of kona cotton, which you'll see in the second photo, rather than the unbleached muslin I purchased for the class and now have a ton of to use. Photos one and three show muslin fabric. The kona does give a bit more of a distinct dye line, but I still favor the hand of the muslin after all is said and done. I think I'm going to try bleached muslin sometime soon. And I probably will buy more kona, as well.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the underpaint on these pieces really washed out, I believe because the underpainted fabric was dried in the sun. Won't do that next time. The piece in the first image was pole wrapped on the diagonal. The second one was wrapped straight on the pole.

The third piece was scrunched into a ball and wrapped in a piece of nylon mesh. This is something we did in the class with all the dyebaths, and which I intend to do as well with all my dyebaths so I build up a stock of cool handdyed fabrics.

Another experiment was with dye color. We used about a dozen mixed colors in the class, and my first thought was to attempt to replicate one of those, using different reactive dyes (I'm currently using Sabracron F's as opposed to Procion MX's) and mixing some of the sub colors as well (a couple of the colors we used in the class included rust dye, so I mixed a rust out of the primaries I currently used).

After this first go round, I decided I would simply choose my shibori palette from colors I already use and love. What's more, I'll be using color formulas that I've used with acid dyes for years, only replicating those with reactive dyes with slightly different primaries. So the colors won't be exactly the same, but they'll be just as good in their own right.

Incidentally, Jan Myers-Newbury doesn't have a web or blog presence, so if you're not already familiar with her work, you'll have to Google her. I felt so honored to be able to work with her as her shibori and her quilts are superlative!