Of course, not everyone is working with silks. Some of us prefer cotton, rayon  or some other cellulosic fiber.

The look can still be achieved with a lot of the same technique, however. And it can be done on those more familiar fibers.

Try this:

What you need to prepare:

Soda Ash solution (1 cup soda ash f0r each pound of dry fabric)

Elmer’s Blue Gel Glue or Silkpaint’s Water Based resist

Assorted MX dyes dissolved in chemical water*

Presoak a piece of muslin in a soda ash solution and hang to dry. DO NOT PUT ANYTHING WITH SODA ASH IN IT IN THE DRYER — IT CAN CAUSE A FIRE.

Once it’s dry, pin it to your work surface, making sure it’s taut. Now draw your design with the resist of your choice. I like Elmer’s Blue Gel because it’s easy to draw with right from the container. If you need really precise lines, I recommend getting one of the gutta bottles and thinning the blue glue to a 5:1 ratio with water. You will quickly develop a feel for moving ahead of the glue and laying down the lines rather than directly drawing them.

Once the design is drawn, let it dry overnight. The glue will pull and pucker the fabric. This is one of the main reasons you want to pin it taut to prevent this from happening.

Now ready your dyes, paints, or whatever you’re doing. I like Procion MX dyes for the cotton. Go lightly until you see just how much dye is required to get the depth of color you desire. I recommend several coats rather than soaking the material since the blue glue is, after all, water soluble. This is why it doesn’t work for LWI.

Let me know your results!

STEP ONE:

Start with a 6 foot length of the rigid insulation you can purchase at a home improvement store.  My personal preference is the Owens-Corning Foamular 2′ x 6′ sheets that are 2 inches thick. You can keep it 6′ or cut it easily with a hacksaw or even a mat knife into smaller pieces.  I prefer cutting it a little less than 5 feet long so the felt covers easily. I don’t recommend getting the styrofoam, it really doesn’t hold up well at all.

STEP TWO:

Once you have this, cover it with craft felt (the cheaper the better). October is the best time of year to do this since all the craft felt goes on sale everywhere by the bolt and is usually the 60 inch wide (or sometimes you get lucky and find the 72 inch).  Wrap the foam with the felt once around. Using T-pins, secure it well everywhere. If you plan on ironing on this surface, include a piece of tin foil on one of the sides, as the felt will melt under the heat if you don’t. It works best to open up the felt and wrap it around the width of the 2′ side so you’re not wasting any. (If it’s 60″ wide and your foam is 54″ that will give you 2″ at each end to pin down and cover.)

STEP THREE:

Now take an old sheet or piece of muslin you don’t care about (this is a perfect place to use the older sheets with the snags that are cotton/poly or some twin sheets you get at the thrift store) and wrap it the same way you wrapped the felt. Make sure the aluminum foil stays where you put it. This will secure it in place. Now pin this securely so there are no wrinkles or bunching and there’s no movement.

Once you have this done, you’re almost there!

STEP FOUR:

Now take another twin size sheet and tear it in half or thirds length wise. This will be your actual working surface. You will lay this over the part that’s pinned down so that you can change it as often as you need to. If the material is cotton/poly, it tends not to soak up the dye or hold onto it. Pin it securely, but it doesn’t have to be long enough to wrap over the entire surface. This is what you’ll pin your workpiece onto/into.

A NOTE ABOUT PINNING WORK DOWN

When you’re using a work surface like this one, make sure you use the longer pins with the glass heads and pin at an angle. I find that pinning towards the center of the workspace works best.

One of the best parts about this surface is that you can either stack them to work on may pieces at once or you can stand them against a wall to let them batch.

I usually lay them on top of a hollow core door I have that’s on two sawhorses for stability. Then I can dyepaint, silkscreen,monoprint or do almost anything else I want to. I have a separate worksurface for discharge that has a bit more foil in it than the other ones.

Here’s what you do: (Now make sure you follow these intricate instructions very carefully!) ~_~

Take a piece of indeterminate length of prewashed, wet cloth and sort of arrange it in a shallow pan (I use a really shallow plastic dishpan). I’ll try to get pictures and add them the next time I do this.

Now, if you have any dye liquid left over after another project (about a cup or so, mixed up according to the LWI recipe I’ve already posted)

Randomly slop the dye liquid over the fabric here and there, mixing colors merrily as the Spirit moves you, but not too much or you’ll get muddy overlap.

While it’s still wet with dye, get out your masks (extremely important!!!) and put them on.  Open up a jar of dye powder in your choice of color and with a plastic teaspoon, take a teeny bit on the end of the spoon and sprinkle it gently over the top of the wet fabric.

Cover the dishpan with a plastic bag or piece of plastic to keep in the heat and place the whole shebang where it’s warm for at least 6 hours.

Finish the process as usual with the rinsing and the Synthrapol.

I find the colors come alive when you iron it dry but that’s just me.

Here’s a sample.

Beware! This process is very addictive. Heh heh heh!

I’ve never seen anyone else with quite my process, which I swear I got from Dharma’s catalog, but it’s not there now and hasn’t been for years. By the way – I usually break this down and only mix up a third of the recipe per color. I get phenomenal colors and wonderful patterns.  I’ve been doing this since 1998 and have been reluctant to try anything else.

3 gallons of hot tap water
3 cups non-iodized salt
1/3 cup soda ash
9 T Urea
1 squirt calsolene oil
Dye according to label directions (in Tablespoons single, double or quad)

Shake well, and pour over wet, pre-washed  fabric, let sit 24 hours without disturbing. Then rinse the fabric cold to hot water till the water runs clear then wash with Synthrapol and dry.

I stuff wet fabric into buckets of all shapes and sizes to get interesting effects. I can get 2 yards of Nature’s Way by Roclon into a plastic ice cream bucket (1 gallon container?)

What do you think of the process? I’d love comments.

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