Another Try at Marbling

I tried to get the marbling to work again this morning, I put the goop in a small 8 X 8 pan, and tested paints. Adding water to thin them and adding dispersant, I kept shaking them and trying a drop on the goop. Still sinking, still not dispersing, some were getting close, but the second time I tried them, Nope. :( The Marbling book suggested Synthrapol as a dispersant instead of the Ox Gall drops that Dharma sent, so I tried that and it seemed to help. As I got each color paint just right, I made a few prints, so most of the prints are pink, lavender and light teal. As I worked on the blue, green and burgundy, I tried for more color variations on the prints.

I mostly just used a bamboo skewer to stir the pattern free hand, and did not worry about trying to make a pattern. It was still frustrating, so I decided to try again tomorrow, with maybe a new batch of goop, thicker this time. It should NOT be this hard to do! It makes you appreciate the marbled fabrics that are available commercially, and the price you pay for them. If I have more luck tomorrow, I'll have a few of the ladies back to my house to try it again.

Dye Workshop 2012, part II

Saturday morning, we arrived bright and early, it was going to be an even hotter day! Each of us started to unwrap our pieces of fabric, each scarf was a Christmas present according to Meredith. Some were dry from sitting out all night, and some were still damp from dye. We oohed and aah-ed as we undid one piece at a time, and took turns rinsing them in a sink. Then they got dropped into a bucket with Synthrapol to soak out the remaining excess dye. We were in ecstasy looking at our masterpieces and holding them up for everyone to see.

Amy suggested we hang the scarves from the big hickory tree, the branches were just the right height from the ground. Meredith was the tallest and clipped on a bunch of clothespins to her t-shirt. As we hung up the scarves, they blew in the wind, and glowed with the sun shining on them.

We had a bunch of happy artists! More and more scarves went up on the tree, until we had trouble finding room for them all. Nancy and Vera's yardage was gorgeous, Nancy's two blacks came out very deep purple with shades of green and turquoise. Vera's yardage was an assortment of colors, folded and patterned, in green, rust and teal.

The tree was a riot of color, glowing in the sun! We had over two dozen scarves flapping in the breeze. We had two late comers, and we sat and watched them open their goodies too.

After the excitement calmed down, we went inside to try the marbling. The trays of goop had dissolved completely and were very clear and thick. Everyone had ironed their alum treated fabrics. I started by dropping a single drop of paint, straight to the bottom it sank. Over the next hour we played with the paint, trying to make it float, then disperse. One brand dispersed but wouldn't float, the other brand floated, but stayed in a tight drop and wouldn't disperse. We combed several attempts with a small amount of paint, they came out very delicate pink with a few blue and purple lines. Not enough paint on the print. We would get one paint thinned out, and a dispersant added and when we used it the second time it wouldn't float. We got very frustrated trying to get just the right consistency for the paint. We went to a "better" brand, Luminere and Neopaque, they were good quality paints, but would NOT disperse. We decided on a lunch break and to try again later, as we felt we were getting closer. After another wonderful lunch, all the leftovers from the day before, plus mini eclairs, we gave marbling another shot. Finally some of the paint was floating enough to try the combs, and we got a few ok prints. As we fiddled with more paint, getting it just right, we were happy to get anything printed. Some of the ladies fiddled with other things, and getting cleaned up. It was getting hotter and hotter, even with the air conditioning in the studio, it got to be 104' outside, so we called it a day. Part III, will be pics of some of the marbling efforts, a few of us will give it another try at my house on Wednesday.

Dye Workshop 2012, part I

Fun, Fun, Fun!! We had ten people for our workshop at Vera's, we worked in her dye studio and pottery workshop, planning to start with ice dyeing. We hauled in several coolers, and must have had a dozen bags of ice. Meredith had the most experience with it, so she guided us along. We each had several silk Charmuese scarves from Dharma to work on, and Vera had silk jacquard yardage, that we divided up. Several of us got 2 yards of each silk, and ripped it length wise for 6 more scarves. Vera and Nancy decided to dye 2 1/2 yard pieces. Meredith had us poke the ends of the scarves into plastic strawberry baskets, wire baskets and plastic gridding, to help with design placement, others got folded or scrunched and put in the baskets to help hold the ice. Everyone had fun choosing different color dyes, to sprinkle over the ice, and we were quiet conservative with our choices, all though several of us did try a multi-color approach.

We worked most of the morning, on setting up the individual piles and baskets of ice and dye. Nancy covered her silk Jacquard yardage with two colors of black, Jet Black and Better Black, each has a different "halo" and bleeds out and separates into it's base colors. Gracie and Peggy also did some cotton fat quarters and t-shirts, and worked in a bucket to "parfait" ice dye. Amy dyed a rayon sundress given to her by Meredith in shades of green/teal/blue for her niece.

As everyone finished up, we loafed in lawn chairs under a 150 year old hickory tree, from the original homesteaders, and caught the cooling breeze. After a trip up the hill, to the main house we had a potluck lunch, of wonderful goodies. We had many salads, quiche, prawns and cocktail sauce, broccoli salad, fruit, and topped it off with apple crisp, chocolate zucchini bread, and sticky buns. After visiting for a while we cut up prepared for dyeing fabric to treat with alum for the marbling the next day. During Friday afternoon, we all wanted to peak at our fabrics, poke them, guess how they are working out, but Meredith was adamant, "NO touching, until 24 hours!" We figured 21 1/2 hours, when we showed up the next morning would be good enough ;) We spent the afternoon treating the fabric with alum and hanging it on the line to dry, making carrageen goop for the marbling the next morning. We stirred and stirred two trays of goop, trying to dissolve the lumps, it got thicker and we worried about stirring in too many bubbles. I used the recipe that came on the package from Dharma, each book had it's own recipe for methel cellulose or carageen. We visited, talked dyes, and Peggy mixed up a few concentrates for "parfait dyeing." The day was getting pretty hot, so we called it an early day and headed home. Photos: 1. Gracie Dyeing 2. Mom & Daughter 3. Peggy's Dye Bucket 4. Peggy Dyeing 5. Peggy & Gracie 6. Kay & Jana at rest 7. Tricolor fat quarters 8. Vera at rest