RedBarn Studios

this past Monday i hosted my 5th Annual Dye Day but didn’t dye any of my own fabrics…i was so caught up in seeing what everyone else was doing.    on Tuesday though, the itch to get my fingers in some dye couldn’t be stopped. I decided to try a new thing for me.

about 3 months ago i made a large portable flat top for surface design.   i spread my soda ashed soaked fab and painted on the dye…usually I scrunch in a container and squirt dye over it.

i LOVE how these new pieces came out!!! I call this one the Melody FAb cause this is just the type of fab she creates.

the Melody FAb

i know you’re supposed to work to get the bubbles out but look at the magic my bubbles produced… SPLENDID indeed!

Melody FAb detail

this one looks like beautiful stonework or a piece of granite…mmmh.   this was the one that started the itch….I sat up in bed on Monday eve and thought, what if I diluted black and havana brown.  can you believe those were the only 2 colours i used here?

stonework

the 2nd piece i painted was one of the gradation fabs I did for Nancy Crow workshop, originally golden yellow, it got messed up in the wash with green splotches so i saved it for the overdye pile.

forest fire

below is the 3rd piece I painted….lots of cerulean blue, sky blue, black and the last of the chatruese dye….a perfect storm.

storm

Doesn’t this next one look like an over saturated pic of an x-ray of teeth?   this was another that needed to be overdyed so i pleated and scrunched it then squirted (back to regular programing) 2 colours on it still managing to keep some of the original yellow colour.   this’ll be an interesting piece to use in my work.

teeth

so here’s who came over to play on Monday…

Michele (rinsing fabs)…

DeLane (on right mxing dyes)…

Susan (all geared up for play)…

& PJ (our resident newbie)

It were fun!
(Mummy please don’t mind the language).

Tags: hand dyed, hand dyeing, pandoras, surface design by k grace howes
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i took pics of all the fabs i dyed last week and had all intentions of working on getting them posted in the wee hours when we were on our trip this past week. yeh, right….the best laid plans and all.  so Sat night before doing anything else i cropped and labeled them all, ready for posting yesterday.

but….best laid plans came into play again cause my mOjo somehow reappeared and ya know we gotta work when the muse hits.

so with out further ado here’s the results of my in the zone dye day, yippee!

don’t ya just love the gradation thing going on????

see the three yellow ones on the top…i actually did a 5 gradation run of  Dharma golden yellow  but this time, boo hoo.  because i did so many fabs i tried rinsing them all in the same wash in the machine (i usually separate the lighter colours).  ix-nay on that one and i should have known better.

splotchy won’t do for NC’s workshop so i’ll either over dye it or do some screen printing.  as a matter of fact, a bit of both might be in order.

the drudgery of ironing
when have lots of fabric to iron i set up my ironing board with my large studio board on it in front of my bed with the board at a comfortable ironing height and then have at it.  i figure there’s no sense in standing and shifting from foot to foot…sitting and ironing can only be a good thing…you guys should try it.

anyway that’s how I got these pics.  was trying to get a good angle on all the newly dyed fabrics all in a row and couldn’t, so tried a spiral.  love it!!!

gradations came out fairly evenly from one fab to the next.

remember this:

here’s the shirt that resulted….and i’ve worn it already i might add…..ha!

when i first brought the fabrics upstairs to begin ironing i just dumped them on my bed. Connor came in and, seeing a chance to play, dived right in throwing the fabrics everywhere.  had to get my camera for this one.

see the how excited he gets with newly dyed fabrics? Not!

my cutey pie

toodles,

Tags: hand dyed, hand dyeing, hand dyes, monday posts, pic of day by k grace howes
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my friend susan called me out on the fact that i left that teaser in my last post with no pics of the results, hee hee.  truth was i was so darned tired from being in a hot garage all day saturday that I couldn’t contemplate being out there on sunday as well.

besides…it was father’s day!

so here’s a pic of a stash of fabs I did last year to satisfy any withdrawal symptoms you might be experiencing and me begging forgiveness

YOWZA  YOWZA  YOWZA!

(p.s…..it wasn’t planned that melly testa‘s book would be in the pics
just how it happened folks cause that book is a must have!)

today’s update:
…rinsed out fabs & shirt
…hung on rack to dry
…about to be ironed & photographed
…result: gorgeous new yummy fabric in my stash
…did a batch more today as well.

On a flipping roll I am!

toodles,

Tags: hand dyed, hand dyeing, hand dyes by k grace howes
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ever since I discovered i could dye my own fabrics i kinda get into a zone when i actually get to do it. it’s been such a long while since i did anything creative and it felt sooooo good to get my hands into the dye pots again.

this time i’m dyeing fabrics for my class with Nancy Crow and, as most of you probably know, she requires A LOT of yardage in all colourways, shades and tints for her workshops.

I usually dye fabric the Anne Johnston way…..piling 3 pieces of fabric in a large jar using 3 different dyes on each layer (see above). i love the way these fabrics turn out, sort a serendipitous adventure.

this time, however,  i need tints and shades of each colour….and that means gradation dyeing that i haven’t done since i started dyeing years ago. instead of using baggies with lots of water, I utilized a low water immersion technique (thinking green here) and small plastic containers.

the process

…made up a 1 cup solution of dye for each colour

…poured 1/2 cup of it into a measuring cup

…dribbled that over one of the 1/2 yd pieces of soda-ash soaked cloth

…manipulated it with my gloved hands so all the cloth is coloured. I then

…topped off the remaining dye solution with a 1/2 cup of water

…mixed it thoroughly then

…poured out a 1/2 cup of that newly mixed solution and

…dribbled that over another 1/2 piece of fab. i continued like this until all 6 pieces were done.

the wait

i then repeated these steps for each colour and stacked up bin after bin, soooo cool to behold!  btw, i got these hand dandy containers at Target….rubbermaid takealongs squares…. 8 for about $4.00…sweet deal!.

meanwhile…
i had a white shirt that had definitely seen better days (dingy white is so out!) and decided to used some of the remaining dyes on the shirt that i scrunched up in a small bin. can’t wait to rinse this out, love the rainbow effect!

next post…the results, stay tuned.

for more in depth tutorials on dyeing check out these:
paula burch’s “all about dyeing”
terri stegmiller’s “2 colour gradation”
melody johnson’s “the lazy dyer”
melissa’s “fabric dyeing 101″
cynthia st charles’”conservation dyeing“
(this is not the most comprehensive list but a start for those not familiar or needing a refresher)

Tags: hand dyed, hand dyeing, hand dyes by k grace howes
5 Comments »

A few weeks back when, for some bizarre reason, we were inundated with oodles and oodles of snow for the 2nd time this year, I got caught up big time in the snow dyeing jag that went around.

I gathered up a big rubber maid tub of snow and proceeded to colour me some fabric.

And yeh…I think I went overboard a bit there in the snow gathering department.

BTW, forgot how cold snow can be if you intend to shovel it with your bare hands so had to don hubby’s hiking mittens.

I proceeded to mix up 3 colours per batch of fabric and got to work making some snow cones.

The colours are always sooo delicious looking dontcha think? Because I normally dye in my garage which was way too cold to stand in for any length of time I set up shop in our sun room.

I was very careful to roll up the area rug and put down a drip cloth and newspaper on the floor under the table and on the table as well.

Here’s the 2nd colours now added to the snow. Last time I snow dyed I used my smoothie machine to crush the ice from my fridge (think I’ll buy a bag of ice next time instead).

I also had the fabric sitting in a basin that was tilted on one side so the fab would not sit in the melted ice.

This time, as you can see in the photo below, I used plastic grids suspended over each basin so the melted snow drained away from the fab. Doesn’t it look a bit like I’ve burned the tops of the fabrics in the photo.

It took a while for me wash out the fabrics. Remember I was in the sun room –not my normal dyeing location — and after all was done and things were cleared away, I put the fabrics on a chair by the garage door to rinse out later.

But, someone moved moved them to a different place. Believe it or not, because they were not there for me to notice I completely forgot about them until a friend reminded me that she had not seen the results of my snow dyeing session.

Duh! I eventually found their hiding place so here they are. Not too, too  please with the results but they will do for now.

Berry Patch 1

Rapunzel Gold

Berry Patch 2

12 Limes and a Lemon

Of course my favorite, because I am still very much in a chartreuse mood, is…..12 Limes and a Lemon.

Enjoy the eye candy!

Tags: hand dyeing, surface design by k grace howes
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First, thanks to all who have left such wonderful comments about my new blog set up. I really appreciate all of you coming over to hang out with me. I think my friend Melinda described it best, it truly was a “barn warming”.

The winner of the big Give-a-Way is Kate C. She will be getting her choice of a 1/2 yd of hand dyed fabric AND one of my new notebook designs.

Alison, Liz, Mary Jo and Janice also hit the jackpot by being the next four people to comment.  Your hand dyed fat quarters await you (send snail mail addy’s please).

Thanks to all of you for making my little corner of the blog world a wonderful place to share.

Tags: community, hand dyeing, journals by k grace howes
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