During a truly expensive trip to Dharma Trading Company last week, I had the pure joy of leafing through their entire book collection. One of my discoveries was Color by Design, by Ann Johnston. I had seen her book for sale on Amazon, but because I already had Color by Accident and found it too basic/simplistic for my tastes, I had passed it by. What a mistake!
Color by Design is exactly the book I’ve been looking for. It covers most of the surface design techniques I’ve been targeting, in a logical order, with exercises to help you explore them. It’s thorough and suitable for everyone from beginner to advanced – though I expect you will get the most out of it by working your way methodically through the exercises. (In other words, by being serious instead of dabbling.) It is emphatically not just for beginners.
All of which goes to show that Amazon can only take you so far. I bought the book at Dharma, since they had done me an enormous service by showing me my mistake in passing the book by. This is a real treasure.
Today, after my guild meeting, I plan to tie up some loose ends. I have seven white and three black T-shirts to use up; I tied three T-shirts for dyeing yesterday and will dye them, plus maybe some of the others, today. I also have one shirt that needs to be discharged and re-dyed, which will happen either today or tomorrow depending on when I have time. And I have six pairs of socks that simply must be tie-dyed.
There are also black sweatpants to print on, and some cotton sports bras in the tie-dye bin, too. More than I can clean out in a single weekend, but I’ve decided to try finishing them off before the move. It will keep me from moping about, and at $3 per, mistakes won’t be tragic. I may use some of them to apply techniques from Color by Design.
