More uses for freezer paper

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for the delay in getting new stuff on the blog. I want to show you a new technique I tried and was pretty happy with the results

I dyed a scarf a light blue and let it air dry after I rinsed out the excess dye and other additives. Then I cut out leaves and vines from freezer paper.

After ironing the dry scarf I arranged the cut leaves and vines on the flat scarf and ironed the down.

*Tip: for small pieces use a sharpie brand marker and color the paper side of the freezer paper so you can easily tell which side is waxed.

After you get all the pieces arranged and ironed………..

Start mixing some color!!!

I wanted to compliment the blue background so I mixed red and blue to get a lovely shade of purple!

After mixing the colors I added soda ash water and put it into a spay bottle and set it for as much of a mist as I could get.

Since I didn't have a table long enough to lay this out all the way (at this time anyway) I laid it on the grass.

And proceeded to spray it down.

I really tried to keep the lightest mist I could however I really wanted to get this done before the neighbors poked their heads out and say me in my "weekend lounge wear", yoga pants and an old T-shirt of Dale's.

Once I got it covered enough I let it dry without rinsing for a day. I also left the freezer paper on it.

After 24 hours I pulled off the freezer paper and washed it in hot water.

the end result was VERY cool. You can see the leaves and vines under the purple.  I plan on trying this again on some other scarves so stay tuned :-)
I think I want to try this with an air brush as well, I'd have better control of the mist......





.

Spring Daze Arts and Crafts Festival April 2011

Cordula and I experienced our first Art and Craft Fair Saturday April 30. We were at Spring Daze that is held annually at Bond Bark in Cary. What a great experience!

            The weather was perfect! We had a nice shady spot that was on the path between the stages so we weren’t jammed in with people and other booths back to back.

As you can see we were colorful which attracted many to come see our scarves. We were also pretty successful!

 We sold 16 scarves and have already been booked for another sale in August. And will hopefully be getting information on the big Art and Craft sale the first weekend in December at the convention center. Woo Hoo!!! The Dragonflies are zooming!!

We need to work on our display. We need to make it look a little more "boutiqueie" (is there such a word?)

Scarves waiting for someone to love them

Look at them, they are like a rainbow!

scarves beckoning, tempting....

Pretty pretty scarves!!

 









What do do on a misty Saturday??? Dye of course!

Wow I think we almost went a whole week without a freeze.

The weather is finally warming up enough to think about getting the dye baths going again! Yeah!!

Between the two of us we dyed 27 scarves…a new record! In case you’re curious about how we get such great looking scarves just keep reading!

When we do a Shibori style  of scarf it requires lots of stitching or tying.  So we are actually working on the scarves well before we actually start to add color.



Mine are tied with dental floss and heavy thread



Cordula favors polyester twine and heavy thread



After we get all the scarves together , we then toss them into  a bucket with Soda  Ash water so they can soak through.

While these soak it's time to get the dyes mixed up. We use Fiber Reactive Procion Dye so we dont' have to mess around with steaming the fabic.

They look pretty harmless however everyone I've talked to who dye's all warn to make sure you used a mask (see in the picture) when you mix and to make a mixing box. (see below)

The sides keep a draft from blowing the dry dye around and I dampen down the newspapers at the bottom so it will catch any dye powder that may sift out.

It's pretty amazing how just a smattering of blue can corrupt a yellow!

I've also written in the measurements of how dye to how much chem water to make a batch, beats having to refer to the book all the time.

and look how pretty the dyes are!

I'm not to crazy about the Sun Yellow we mixed up, the colors keep seperating. As we used it we mixed it with some soda ask water and that seemed to help somewhat. I used old chem water so maybe that had something to do with it.

After the soaking we were then ready to start adding color....and did we!!!



Cordula adding color



Don't the colors look wonderful as they soak into the Silk!

After about an hour we finally got the last of the scarves in some kind of color. Then just when we thought we had time to take a break, the first scarf we colored was ready to be rinsed...so on to the rinsing!



And Rinsed

Rinsing is like the everlasting story...it just never ends

after all the rinsing, we can finally toss them into the washer and take lunch!! Yeahhhhhh Jersey Mikes here we come!

But don't they all look so pretty in the sink!

After washing we then have the finger tortuous task of pulling out all the string, rubber bands and twine...one problem with making an elaborate tie, it takes FOREVER to get it out when wet!!!!

However I have to say the results are worth it, below are a few.



Some of our Creations