Katazome workshop Day Two

Day two of the katazome workshop was slightly less jam-packed than the first day: mostly we pasted with our freshly-carved stencils, and painted on the fabrics we pasted yesterday.

Here is my butterfly stencil, painted with watercolor pigments in a soy milk base:

And here is my flower stencil, similarly (but much more simply) painted:

The look, of course, is misleading: the tan parts where the paste resist was applied will (or should be) pure white once the resist is rinsed out.  But that will be a week or two from now; the soy milk needs time to bind the pigment to the fabric, so I won’t be able to rinse it out until next weekend at earliest.  (Proteins in the soy milk denature over time, binding to both fabric and pigment.)

We also pasted scarves with the stencils we cut yesterday.  Most of the participants dyed theirs on the spot with Colorhues dyes (which are insta-set); I decided to take mine home, undyed, so I could experiment later with painting on fiber-reactive dyes.

Meanwhile, in Celtic Braid Coat-land, I have revised the pattern to a panel style, inserting a side panel so I can narrow both front and back pieces.  I still need to sew up the muslin, which I will do as soon as B. gets up.  I do have time to fiddle, as my leather sewing materials are being shipped from New York City and heaven only knows when they will arrive.  And the black leather piping I bought on eBay is still on its way as well. Until those arrive, I can’t do any sewing.