The Quest for Spring Green.

There are so many green hues in nature. But which ones really dominate in Spring? The answer probably depends on the plants in your view. But in creating a dye background for my Spring pieces, I want to capture the yellow-green I see in the new growth popping out of stems and branches. I also need that hue to coordinate with the gray pieces I've already made for Autumn so it can't be an intense hue. So to find my desired green, I ran several experiments mixing colors to produce my yellow-green. I tried various blue dyes mixed with Prochem's Sun Yellow. I tried Neutral Gray mixed with that yellow, too. And then I mixed compliments to get a duller green because the brightly colored ones didn't play well with the gray pieces. I mixed grape with yellow, grape with curry, bronze with tangerine. All produced some very interesting greens. I think, for my purposes with this series, I've settled on the bronze/tangerine mixture.
     One thing I found was that the color will change dramatically if the fabric is completely immersed in the dye bath compared to if it is just wet with the dye bath. Here's an example:

green produced by completely immersing
fabric in yellow/grape mixture

interesting but ugly sample using the same dye bath
shown above, but only wetting the fabric with it
instead of immersing the fabric in it

I think I've learned that only wetting the fabric with dye mixtures causes the colors to split. (Which may be a good thing sometimes, but not for what I want here.)

Completely immersed in a bronze/tangerine mixture

This one is very close to what I want. (The rectangle you see on the right is a shadow of my iPhone when I took the photo.) I tried overdyeing a piece of it in very dilute Marine blue to get a little more green and less yellow.

Overdyed sample

I love this piece of fabric, but it doesn't really go well with the gray pieces I have so I'll use it for something else. I wasn't expecting so much blue to come out pure. Something for me to remember about overdyeing... Some of the new color will show as its pure color. 

     So I might use the bronze/tangerine mixture and try getting the effect I want by printing on it with the right hues. I'm getting a little frustrated because I can get the exact color I want when mixing paints, but with dye, you can't see what you've got until after you've washed and dried the fabric after it has batched in the dye bath. Sometimes, while it is in the dye bath, it looks one color, but after batching, washing and drying it comes out different than what it seemed. I guess that is part of the learning curve. 

     While my samples, batch (24 hours), I work on smaller projects. I needed some coasters in my studio for putting on wet glasses with ice water or cups of hot coffee or tea and I wanted them to coordinate with the quilt my grandmother made for me. Instead of buying fabrics, I went to a bag I've been keeping of scraps of fabric leftover from dye experiments. I cut up pieces of those to make small collages and followed a tutorial I wrote here for my very first blog post on how to make coasters using old floppy disks. 

new coasters on studio table

All four coasters

      So that's what I've been up to. Trying to find the right green and smaller things. I think it is the scientist in me that makes me want to get just the right mixture. But I've decided that this week, I'll just choose one of the mixtures I've already tried and make it work in my series. I can change how it appears by the paint colors and values I choose for printing imagery on it. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts to let them know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

     

First Post!

Hello All,
     I would like to enter the blogging world by offering you all a tutorial. I've learned many techniques from other artists who generously offered ideas, tutorials, and techniques on their blogs and I'd like to share things I discover with you.
     I have boxes of old floppy disks from my days as a science teacher. I hate to waste things and I don't want to be a hoarder so I searched on the Internet for ways to use old floppies. I learned how to take them apart and make tiny Starship Enterprises out of them and I saw that you can paint on them to create small artworks. But one evening I had a floppy sitting on a table and I put my coffee mug on top and realized the floppy is a perfect size for a coaster. If used as is, it's not too attractive and condensation from a glass would just run down the plastic onto the table. And if the coaster is made solely from fabric, then the condensation can soak through to the table. The combination of the fabric with the plastic protects the furniture below it. So here is what I made:

What you need for one coaster:

A floppy disc (remove the metal part, pry it open and remove the metal and film inside, close the plastic floppy)

2 pieces of craft felt 4 1/2 inches square

1 piece of background fabric 4 inches square (I used burlap)

Pieces of coordinating fabric (I found that 6-7 different fabrics gave a nice appearance)

Fusible (optional) (I didn't use any)

Steps:

1. Place your background fabric on top of one piece of felt.

2. Place or fuse your scrap fabrics on top of the background fabric.

3. Sew around the edge of the border fabric to attach it to the felt. (I used a decorative stitch so that the burlap wouldn't fray over time.)

4. Sew the fabric scraps onto the background and felt.

5.  Place over the second square of felt and line up edges. Straight stitch 3 sides.

6. Tuck in the plastic floppy.

7. Sew up remaining side of felt being careful not to hit the floppy and break the needle. (You could use a zipper foot, but I had plenty of room with a regular foot.)

Here are some I made for Christmas:

Save the metal pieces and find a good use for those. Let me know if you can think of anything good to do with them.

     Let me know if you have any questions. Next post may be gelatin monoprinting (if I can get the kitten to take a nap).