Wet Cyanotype, Soy Wax Paste and Pole Wrapped Shibori

If you look at the title of my post you might wonder what all those have in common. They are all done on fabric and I did them all this past week. I'm beginning to think that at age 70 I've got attention deficit disorder because I'm just bouncing from one project to the next.

First I used up the pretreated cyanotype fabric that I had. The first pictures are of the finished pieces that I showed in process last week, the last picture is all the ones I've done.

I'm loving these, it's easy and unpredictable to a certain extent which definitely appeals to me. I found that I really had to get them quite wet and if I put them out early in the morning most of the process happened before they dried out. The big difference between these and regular cyanotype is the chemicals on the background react differently when wet and instead of a solid dark blue it produces a mottled background of sometimes unexpected colors. I will do more but I want to do some planning on how I want to use them instead of just randomly printing. I will probably keep this group together as one with a sashing in-between the blocks.

So, while going thru my fabrics trying to find something that would work for the sashing I pulled out several pieces of green pole wrapped shibori that had been languishing on the bottom of the tote for several years. A sudden burst of inspiration and a few hours later I had this.

It's about 50 " square and used almost every bit of the fabric.

Next up was soy wax paste. This is a product that Jane Dunnewold has produced and of course I had to buy some after I saw this video of Jane demonstrating it.

My first try was not very successful, although in the video it said you could use regular newspaper to steam the piece I found that the print came off onto my fabric. Second try was much more successful.
I used stencils that I had cut for my weekly stitching, on  a silk noil background and kept it very simple.

Originally I had planned on doing more shapes in the background, but then decided since the Fourth of July is coming, I kept it red, white and blue.

Weekly Stitching
Signs of Life:The five universal shapes.
Week #26

Last week was also Fiddle week here in town and that week is also yard sale week, seems like there are yard sales everywhere. I made one purchase, a bag of pearl cotton balls for $1.

There was one green in the bag that I didn't already have, so that one got used in my daily stitching.

2017 Daily Stitching #2 days 17-23

I also started quilting the hand dyed circles over dyed with indigo, with more circles. Now I'm contemplating what to do next.

I'll be linking up to "Off the Wall Friday" and "Slow Sunday Stitching"

A new obsession; wet cyanotype

A few days ago I stumbled upon a youtube video on wet cyanotype (blueprint) and thought it was very interesting even though it was done on paper. Then yesterday Sue Reno posted on her blog about her experiments with it on fabric and I knew I had to try it. While you check out her blog be sure to look at all the wonderful regular cyanotypes she does, she is a real master. So I got out some of my leaves, some treated fabric, a spray bottle of water and started to play. Both the youtube video and Sue said to leave the prints out for 24 hours rather than the usual 10 minutes, my first two were out for about 18 hours, the third one this morning was only out for 6 hours. I now have three more out and I'm going to do my best to be patient and wait for 24 hours.  The basic process is to take the treated fabric, put an image (the leaf) on it, cover with glass and let it sit in the sun. In wet cyanotype the treated fabric gets wet. I sprayed water on both the plastic under the fabric and on the glass before I covered the fabric. My fabric dried out so instead of waiting 24 hours I went ahead and rinsed and dried it.

Under the glass, out in the sun.

 finished print after rinsing and drying

This one was done on treated magenta fabric

This mornings experiment was done the same way, except I wanted to see what it would look like with even shorter time. I forgot to take a picture of it under glass, but here's how it looks now. It was cooler this morning than yesterday afternoon so it didn't dry out as fast.

The three that I've got out in the sun are looking pretty good, but I'm going to be patient and wait. I may add more water if they dry out. It's hot, breezy and low humidity so it's hard to keep things damp.

This one is on green pretreated fabric.

This one I sprayed the water directly on the fabric.

This one is on turquoise pretreated fabric.

I'll show you what happens in the next post. You can see more on Instagram at #wetcyan.

I've sewn together the hand dyed fabrics that were over dyed with indigo and am trying to decide how to quilt it.

Weekly Stitching

Signs of Life: The five universal shapes

week #25

the first 25 weeks of the year

2017 Daily Stitching #2 days 10-16

I'll be linking up to "Off the Wall Friday" and "Slow Sunday Stitching"

A Play Day

Last Friday Lisa and Kathleen drove out to Weiser for a play day. I had a  fresh indigo pot, soy wax  and all sorts of clamps and plexiglass glass shapes ready to go. We played with a variety of fabrics and created some really cool designs.

Here's Lisa tying some organza with bright orange yarn.

The organza soaking in water.

Holding up the finished piece.

Kathleen checking on a piece hanging to dry.

A few shots of texture and pattern.

I found 8 vintage linen napkins in my stash, they are now blue and white, each with a different pattern.

We had a great time, it is so good to have friends to play with!

Last year I had over dyed about 10 pieces of hand dyed cotton, yesterday I added 15 more pieces to it.

I did them late yesterday and stuck them up on my design wall as I ironed them. I need to square them up and maybe play with placement a bit before sewing them together.

I've finished both of the cyanotype pieces.

This one has  contour stitching around the leaves and hand stitched veins on each leaf.

This one has straight stitching overall.

Weekly Stitching
Signs of Life:The five universal shapes
wk#24

2017 Daily stitching #2, days 3-9

A bunch of french knots to start with.

I'll be linking up to "Off the Wall Friday" and "Slow Sunday Stitching"