Richter Inspiration Fabric with Zigzags
Have you ever observed someone eating who has a "thing" about making their food come out even so that they have the same number of bites of the various items on their plate? I call this the Peas and Carrots Syndrome or PCS for short. I'm not sure if this is due to enjoying the taste of the food items together or maybe they have been told to "clean your plate" and this becomes a little game to make everything more fun.
I don't have PCS in relation to food but I do have it in relation to dye concentrate, print paste and soda soaked fabric. Yes dear reader, after I have concluded my planned dye work I often have leftovers and for some unknown reason I feel compelled to "clean my plate" and use as much of these items as I can before giving up and putting things away.
So here is how it went today. I had a large stack of failed mono-printed fabric I made during cold weather. Last week I soda soaked them and today decided to revive them and paint them all with black stripes. I completed this and realized that I had lots of dye concentrate still on hand...too much to waste and not enough to put in the fridge (not really but that's how my mind works). I still have a few pieces of the Richter Inspiration fabric I have been working with so I took a small piece of that and painted some zigzags. Then I decided I needed a companion so I pulled out another piece of failed fabric....this one a deconstructed number. I didn't have enough dye and print paste mixture so I made some more and painted the second piece. I liked it and had an idea for another piece so I pulled out a third piece but had to mix more dye which I did. This was followed by a fourth piece but I decided to mix a different color. I put too much dye on it so I then had to find a 5th piece which I laid face down on the fourth piece and made a print.
Companion Piece - Too much dye.
Deconstructed Failure with Print Paste then Thickened Dye Applied on top.
I pulled a plastic fork through the paste and dye which makes the striations.
Detail
What you see here is actually the back of piece number 5 which is laying on piece 4. The dye and the markings you see have soaked through from Piece 4.
Mono-printing fabric to fabric!
This may a new technique : )
This picture might give you a better idea of what is happening. I am pulling up the corner of the top piece of fabric and you can see the bottom corner of piece 4.
Wow! I have 5 small pieces plus the larger planned pieces. I used almost all of my print paste, all of my mixed black dye and a good portion of a couple other things......I still had to put some items in the fridge but not as many as I might have had to do were it not for my PCS.
The great thing about this is that when I work this way I feel totally free to experiment and try things I might never have thought of. Often the fabrics are what I call "special" as they have been processed two or more times. They have accrued value through use of material resources and my time but if I don't invest a little more of each of those things I will never use the fabric.
The jury is out on my 5 experiments. One looks like it will bleed to black and the others...well, we'll just have to wait and see. The aren't great as they were very wet and laying flat under very bright lights but I hope they allow you to have a peek at my "Peas and Carrots."
Thank you for dropping by. I love hearing from you and home you'll come again.
