surface design study

I’m not quite sure where the last two days went – it seems like I should have accomplished more, considering how hard I’ve been working! But I have set up, labeled, and dyed my samples for discharge tests, covering 22 dyes: ten colors of Cibacron F (the eight “pure” colors plus two mixes) and twelve colors of Procion MX dyes. I haven’t touched the acid dyes on silk yet, and if I do them, it will be a totally separate process. I do intend to get there eventually.

Anyway, I have done nine swatches of each color, for a total of 198 swatches. Each swatch is roughly 5×7, and is labeled with the name of the color. I plan to use eight of the swatches for each color (the ninth is an extra), covering:

no discharge
Immersion discharge in Thiox solution
Immersion discharge in Thiox with shibori (to see how the edges come out when the fabric is tied beforehand)
Immersion with bleach
Immersion with bleach and shibori
Jacquard discharge paste (a rectangle to show the solid results, and a detailed image to show how that looks)
Thiox discharge paste (ditto)
Bleach gel – liquid dishwasher detergent with bleach (ditto)

This will show me how the color discharges in just about any method I might use.

Here is a finished sample (this one came out a little uneven since I mistakenly soaked it in soda ash before putting it into the dyebath):

Here is my giant bucket o’ samples, which I will iron and put neatly into order this morning:

a five gallon bucket filled with dyed swatches!

A word about the labels. (I am very proud of my labels!) I needed to be able to label the fabrics before dyeing, with a label that would survive dyeing and discharge both. This meant that paper labels were right out, along with anything printed with inkjet or permanent marker (which might not survive the discharge bath). So how to do the labels?

Thermofax to the rescue! I typed up my labels in neat order, printed them out, and ran them through the Thermofax to make a screen. I then screen printed in black ink on white polyester fabric (which does not take fiber-reactive dyes) to produce sheets of painted labels in white polyester:

I then ironed the polyester labels to sheets of Heat’N’Bond, cut out the labels, and ironed them onto to each swatch individually. Now my swatches are permanently labeled! (The one thing that may not work is a boiling-water bath, which will probably re-melt the glue. So for the Thiox discharge bath, I may have to just dip the top part of the swatch in.)

Hmm. 198 swatches = 198 labels, each individually cut and ironed on. Not to mention twenty-two dyebaths afterwards! I think I understand now why this took so long!

I will now have to do another set of labels, this time to cover the various processes and materials I intend to use. This will also be incredibly laborious, but I don’t see a better alternative. So I better quit whining and get back to work. 🙂

Today I plan to work on quilting, though. I’m a bit behind in my piecing, and the new lesson – with more squares to make – just opened, so I need to play catch-up. I also have a metal clay class this afternoon, on carving stamps to make textures in metal clay. I figure it will double nicely as a lesson in carving stamps generally, which interests me because stamping is one of the surface design techniques I intend to sample. And I am interested in metal clay, too.

Off to cut up some quilt pieces! (And iron a Big Bucket o’ Samples!)

I spent some time yesterday thinking about how to approach surface design in a systematic manner. This matrix reflects my thinking (click to zoom in):

As you can see, it’s a rather long list, but I think I can plow through quite a few of the items fairly quickly if I organize myself efficiently. At this level, I’m studying technique, not composition; I think that’s the better way to go. Composition is what you practice after you’ve developed skills, so I’m focusing on skills right now. (Mental note: add this to book!)

Anyway, I would normally start with immersion dyeing, but I have some friends coming over on Saturday to play with tie-dyes and Thermofax screening. This means mixing up lots of liquid (unthickened) dye for direct application, so I think I’m going to go with the flow and do the liquid dye section instead. This will be the first dyeing, so any resisted areas will come out white. Not ideal from a composition standpoint, but it will show off the technique very clearly (and can always be overdyed). Later in my experiments I will play with layering multiple techniques, but for now I’m going to work with one technique at a time.

I am thinking I will start with pretty small pieces (fat quarter size or even less – maybe 8×11 for the various resists) because these results aren’t meant for use in something, but will go straight into my dye notebooks. This means they need to fit into sheet protectors so I can keep records. This will also stretch out the yardage, so I can get more pieces from/try more techniques on my fifteen yards of fabric. So I think that’s a good thing.

So Saturday will be a full-on dye day, testing liquid dye with various resists. Friday will involve some prep work, as I want to put together a flour paste screen using the silkscreen frames I have at hand. (The flour paste needs a day to dry before it can be used.) I also want to try screen printing and stenciling various resists onto the fabric beforehand. Finally – and quite unscientifically – I want to finish off the T-shirts I started last week, and maybe make a few more.

Wow! What a lot of stuff. It looks like I have my summer’s work cut out for me.

A lengthy setup

Surface design study plans