Saturday, July 27, 2013

The Tweedles in Colorland



Or maybe I should say, "Two happy days of living under the rainbow!". This picture was even taken after an unprecedented July rain. My friend, Sharon and I recently adventured into creating hand dyed fabrics and other items. This is an event that we have talked about for some time and finally managed to feel confident enough to jump into little puddles of color and just create.

The coloring started by mixing our 20 plus dyes with urea water in individual little cups. We could then pick
and choose which colors to add in a direct dye method. How fun to see the colors explode onto the fabrics and to be able to lay a variety of colors next to one another.


I also tried my hand at wax resist or batik. I think this was probably on my unofficial bucket list of things to do.



However!!! When you add rain
to wax....






You get something that looks like...

The batik process may have been cut short, but I was still able to get some really fun fabrics out of the two days. Calling this fabric group Orange Slice. The process consisted of applying wax to white fabric, (leaving 1/2 of the fabric un-waxed) dyeing it orange. Then I waxed the orange 1/2 yard of fabric and discharged the

color from the background. I'm already planing my next dye and discharge colors!!


 These wild orange flowers started with a potato stamp and then used a tjanting tool to make the petals.

And then, just how much color is too much color on one yard of fabric? The brown and the green fabrics started as a single unit. After I had added the smaller, darker triangles I cut the fabric in half. One side I dyed in deep orange for the brown background and the other half was dyed in chartreuse for the green background.

This was way more fun than any old coloring book, but I can see it will certainly take some planning to ensure a successful dye process.

Happy coloring!
Tana

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

It's Just Me

It's just me with my paternal and maternal grandmothers! 

Not a granny yet; hope to be someday; really hope they don't call me Granny Grunt; probably will, seems apples rarely fall far from the tree...

Small town(s) girl; successful business owner; semi-retired; 25 plus years of married happiness; mother of 2 enchanting boys (to men!) and 1 canine boy (forever my baby)...

Love art; love craft; love trying something new; coffee is good at anytime of the day...

Who is Granny(?); the one that has inspired; the one that has taught; the mother; the aunt; the grandmother; the friend; the teacher; even the 'net...

Granny's Gift (on Etsy) is how treasures find new homes; love to share; love to see what others do; hope that one day you will say, "I got it from granny!"

Happy Coloring! Tana