Painting Fabric with Dyes ~ with Ann Johnston

Who-hoooo!!!

Four and a half yards of plain white fabric
turned into these
colorful (and color-fast), hand-dye-painted beauties:


Detail pictures follow... and all are click-to-enlarge.

Some of you know how much I love to paint decorative papers with layers of acrylic paint (see my website here and past posts here)! And some of you may remember my post about a brief opportunity to paint fabrics with dyes in Chicago a year ago (see here). To you it will be no surprise that, instead of going to our annual quilt retreat this past weekend, I took a 3-day workshop from Ann Johnston!!!!

Ann describes herself as a quilt maker, who took up fabric dying to get the fabrics she wanted and needed for her quilts. I'd describe her as a quilt master, an artist with double mediums of dye and fabric. Below is a sample of her dyed fabrics showing some of the techniques we learned.


Three days was just barely enough to scratch the surface, to learn a little about the variables involved in immersion dying and painting with dyes. The confusing parts for me concerned mixing the four solutions:

• Procion MX dyes ~ we mixed all of our dyes using only 6 colors (2 reds, 2 blues and 2 yellows) plus black
• soda ash ~ fabrics need to be saturated with soda in order to fix the dyes
• print paste ~ sodium alginate and other ingredients mixed with water ~ used to thicken the dyes for painting
• urea water ~ used to thin print paste

Also confusing was the whole curing process involving time (4-24 hours for the dyes to set), temperature (72 degrees or more) and moisture. I need to take some time to re-write my notes so I don't forget so much.

We started with a selection of plain white, quality, cotton fabrics with no sizing or wrinkle-free treatments. My favorite of the fabrics were a Hoffman Indonesian lawn (the same as used for Bali batiks) and a medium-weight ultra sateen, by Robert Kaufman.

Our first lesson was to make a very light and a dark value of the same color by immersion dying. Then, also using the immersion process, we did a two-color blended fabric. Below are my light red, dark red and orange-olive blend curing (fixing) in their respective dye baths.


For the remainder of the first day and the next two days, we painted dyes on fabrics using brushes, rollers, stamps, stencils and sponges. My favorites were done in layers. Each layer had to cure and dry (but not too quickly) before applying the next layer in order to preserve distinct edges. I didn't try to paint fabric sets, but have arranged pieces that look fairly good together for the detail images which follow.







My roommate and tablemate was Marie, of Z Quilts.


We both had a great time... and it was fun and a privilege to get to know Marie better. You can read her blog about the class (here) and see pictures of the fabrics she painted (here).

Although 19 of us were crowded in a 3-car plus garage for this class (now I know how sardines feel), we all managed to have a great time and produce some wonderful fabrics. Some of the local women have already formed a study group and figured out how to buy bulk supplies.

Pleased as I am with most of my fabrics, the jury is out about me doing more of this. The number of variables, the expense of it and the space requirements are the downsides. The fun of painting and the often serendipitous results are the upsides. Time will tell...

Meanwhile, I'm already back to beading. You'll see more of that soon!

*******

If you're a quilter, you may want to check out Ann Johnston's latest book, The Quilter's Book of Design. I've skimmed through all of it and find it one of the best ways to look at the design process that I've ever encountered. It easily applies to related art forms, such as bead embroidery, as well.

*******

A thought about taking workshops ~ I've been teaching workshops and classes for 20 some years. Only a few times during these two decades have I found time to take a workshop taught by someone else. And what a pleasure it is to be on the other side of the room once in a while... not having to know anything, not having to be responsible for anything except my own learning process, not having to prepare all the kits (Ann's were awesome!), not having to pack and put it all away when I get back home!!!

Ann handled all the difficulties (crowded space, great variation in previous dying training by her students, trying to convey years of her experience and knowledge in just three days, empowering students to experiment and play with the basic techniques on their own) admirably well! It was really a joy to sit back and be a beneficiary of her efforts. Sweet!