Transfer Paints

My friend and I spent the day experimenting with Transprint Inks by Kraftkolour. These Inks are concentrated Disperse Dyes for use on man made fibres such as polyester, nylon and poly cotton blend fabrics for transfer printing. I've used them before but not for awhile. The dyes were painted onto copy paper with various sizes of brushes, sponge brushes and stamps. After the painted papers were dry, we transferred the images by ironing with a hot iron onto poly cotton, Lutradur, organza and drapery interfacing.

Some of the colours were quite intense when transferred while others were not. I have the book, Color Moves, Transfer Paints on Fabric by Linda Kemshall. This is a very comprehensive book on using transfer paints. To date, I haven't used any transfer painted fabric in any specific project. I can see using some hand / machine stitching in combination with a transferred image.

Here's a few photos from today's experiments:

Drapery Interfacing

Lutradur

Fabric Dyeing

Over the years, I have dyed fabrics for various projects. I started out using the Colour Vie Pigment System with Gunnel Hag. In fact, I still use it as it makes the most beautiful skies as you can see in this piece, 'In All Its Glory'.

For some reason, there are two photos of this piece showing up in Internet Explorer! I post in Fire Fox.

I have over dyed commercial fabric to get the right colour for a project. In the long piece, 'Western Brook Gorge', the binding fabric and some fabric used in the mountain range, were done this way. To get the texture I wanted for the mountain, dyed cheese cloth was used, as it is easy to crunch up to give the look of ridges.This sky was also dyed using the Colour Vie Pigment System mentioned above.

For other projects, I have used a variety of fabric paints, paint sticks, stamping inks, premixed fabric dyes, water colour pencils and crayons. I haven't used Ritz dyes yet. I came across a great tutorial on using these dyes that I just might try. It was posted by Vicki Miller, from Australia, called To Dye Another Day. Check it out.

Early Bloomers

Here are some early bloomers from my back garden. Inspiration for my some of my art does come the garden. I delight in the many variations in colour from bloom to bloom. In fact, I have, on occasion, matched the colours to my embroidery threads and dyed fabrics.

I don't remember the names for the first two pictures.

The periwinkle underneath the globe cedar is flourishing. Several years ago my friend, Judith gave me a snip from her garden.







Take a look at some other flowers (quilted, of course):

Garden of Eden art quilt
Indian Flower 
Quilt As Art 
Nature's Numbers
Orchard & Flower Garden 

Fabric Designs

Finding interesting fabric designs for a special project isn't always easy! Many textile artists will usually take a piece of fabric and change it in some way using such products as dyes, paint sticks, fabric paints and crayons, resist, stamping . . . the list is a long one! I have also printed directly onto cotton and silk from my computer.

In my search for things, I came across Spoonflower where you can design and print your own fabric. I was also fascinated with the blog for this site. Check out the many fabric designs. They are fabulous!

This site also has a list of interesting blogs and links to check out.