Experimentation
Last week, at my fibreart support group meeting, The Fibreart Divas, some of the ladies were experimenting with a new dyeing process, aimed at creating background fabric for future textile art. Watching them, I was reminded of a dyeing workshop by Laura Kemsell that I had taken on the internet. She had done a couple of things differently, but several things exactly like my friends were doing. They used a large flat metal tray for a base, started with a layer of heavy plastic, then a layer of fabric pre-soaked in Sodium Carbonate. This was then covered with various colours of dye, another piece of plastic on top and the whole thing squeegeed vigorously. Within the plastic, their finished pieces showed very little value difference and appeared to be reduced to one colour. Another layer of fabric on top and the whole process repeated several times. All the layers were then tightly rolled up and left to batch overnight. The Kemshell workshop u...