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Tuesday tutorial - transfer dyes

27/1/2015

6 Comments

 
Transfer dyes

Transfer or disperse dyes are used to colour synthetic fabrics like polyester and spun-bonded fabrics such as Lutradur and Evolon. They are available in powder and liquid form from suppliers such as ColourCraft. 

They are painted onto paper and then ironed with a hot iron to transfer the colour to fabric (a sublimation process). You can paint a design onto your paper and transfer that direct to fabric or, as I have here, colour individual papers and use them for collage and stencil and mask techniques.

Last week in ITS we were trying out transfer dyes to colour synthetic fabrics. There are loads of ways to use transfer dyes and here is one of my favourites.
The method is really simple and as usual, quite addictive:

1. Paint your papers with transfer dye. Use a thinnish, non-absorbent paper - if it is too thin it will curl up, which can be frustrating, but if it is too thick it will take ages for the colour to transfer, so a happy medium is needed. I find ordinary printer/copy paper works well. 

2. Use a fairly thin, even layer of paint, thinning liquid paints with water if they are too thick. Colours will appear dull on paper, and not at all like the vibrant colours they will be on fabric, so it is worth doing some test swatches and making a note of the colour on the back of the paper. Hard to believe, but the two 'greys' above will be bright violet and turquoise!

3. Let your papers dry thoroughly and you are ready to go.

4. Any synthetic fabric will work, including blends with cotton, but the higher the proportion of synthetic, the brighter the colours will be. I have chosen Evolon, which is a spun-bonded mix of polyester and nylon, with a peached surface and good drape. It doesn't tear or fray and is great for quilting. For more information visit Spunart.co.uk.

I'm working on some small journal quilts, and for my inspiration I've used a great picture found in a well known department store's (!) home catalogue. I love the random collection of cutlery, and thought they would be wonderful shapes to work with. I enlarged the picture and made several copies of it so that I could cut out the individual shapes to use as masks. Here's what to do next:
 
5. Protect your ironing board with baking parchment and lay your fabric on top. Arrange your mask shapes on top and, when you are happy with the arrangement, carefully place painted paper in your background colour face down on top. I'm using charcoal grey.

6. Cover with another piece of baking parchment and iron with a hot dry iron (as hot as the fabric will allow: beware - synthetics scorch!) to transfer the dye, paying particular attention to edges and corners. Keep the iron moving, or you will get a perfect image of the sole-plate, holes and all! This process takes about five minutes; you can check on progress by carefully lifting a corner - take care not to move the masks or the image will be blurred.

7. Once you are happy with the colour remove the transfer paper and the masks to reveal your fabric with a voided image and coloured background.

And now the fun starts! Because the masks were in contact with the paper, dye will have transferred to the back of them too. This means that they can be used to produce a positive image. Flip them over onto a new piece of fabric, cover them with another piece of painted paper and repeat the ironing process. In the example below I have used strips cut from several colours to make a striped background . . .

The result is a striped background with grey cutlery on it. 

Now the backs of the masks will have coloured stripes. They can be flipped over and used as the start of a new design . . . or placed back onto the original design to colour the voided shapes. 


The papers can be re-used several times before the dye is exhausted. In the pictures below I first used them to colour the white shapes on the grey background, and then started a new piece with them, using a turquoise background this time. 
And as the backs of the masks were now turquoise, I thought they would look good against a plain white background (I did say this was addictive!)

I think I was getting a bit impatient with the ironing though, and I felt that the two turquoise pieces were a bit insipid, and I'm not keen on the combination of turquoise with the pale multi-coloured cutlery. But all is not lost, as with this technique it is easy to layer up colour to achieve more depth and interest. Here's how I resolved that:
First I coloured the backs of the masks red, making sure I had them the right way up to fit back into their original space on the turquoise piece. Then I replaced them on the turquoise piece, covered them with a navy piece of paper and ironed to transfer the colour. 


Finally, I used the now blue side of the mask to deepen the colour of the cutlery on the blue and white piece. If you look closely, you will see that some of the inkjet ink from the masks has also transferred, giving extra detail - a happy accident!


So there we have it - four journal quilts ready to be quilted. I'll post a picture when they are finished. 
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I hope you enjoyed reading this post, and are inspired to have a go at this great technique yourself. Do comment and tell us what you made.
6 Comments

Just had to share...

26/1/2015

2 Comments

 
...Bec Handyside's latest quilt, Spiers Lane which is hot off the sewing machine!
 
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Isn't it stunning?  Not only is Bec's a fanatical (can I say that??) quilter but she's mad about cycling too!  Not being able to cycle at the moment is very frustrating for her, so she's been busy cycling through her mind and this is the result.

Using silk, always a tricky fabric to sew, Bec has free cut and machine pieced the curves with foundation piecing for the flying geese and triangle sections.  She has then let her imagination and sewing machine run riot with free motion quilting patterns.  Each section has a different quilting pattern and they are all beautifully stitched, a real feast for the eye.

Bec will be entering Spiers Lane into several quilt shows this year, so do keep a look out for it!  If you would like to see more of Bec's work then visit her here:
http://www.bechandysidequilting.com/

2 Comments

Can't wait...

19/1/2015

0 Comments

 
...to try out my new hand carved alphabet blocks from Colouricious.com.  Ordered Saturday, here Monday morning, can't ask for better service, and each set packed in its own hand printed cloth bag!

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0 Comments

Farnham Maltings Quilters' Sale

18/1/2015

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Feeling a bit wilted (but the gin’n'tonic is slowly reviving...) as we have spent all day exhibiting and demonstrating at the Farnham Maltings Quilters' Sale.  In one guise or another, Terry and I have been 'doing' Farnham Maltings for over 10 years.  We love meeting old friends, making new ones, looking at all the quilts on display by the various local quilt groups and indulging in a bit of retail therapy.  Although this year the latter didn't really happen because we were too busy demonstrating on our InStitches stand! 

We had taken our Gelli plates along, so we were busy inking and rollering our way through sheets and sheets of paper.  We love this technique, and of course if you can do it on paper, you can do it on fabric!

There wasn’t much time spare to take photographs (memo to self: use your phone camera next time, and blog from the show...) but here are a few of Terry in action:

As I am stepping down as Chair of Village Green Quilters this year, I got to chose two quilts for rosettes.  The first one I chose was Starry Sky by Margaret Bradly.  It was the back view (which I failed to photograph – sorry!) which first attracted my attention because I do like a bit of ‘back art’.  In other words she had incorporated some of the blocks into the backing fabric and made a feature of the reverse instead of ignoring it.  So worth doing when it is a quilt to be used, because the back is viewed just as much as the front.  Margaret’s colour choice was bold and it looked brilliant against the black background.  Not many quilters chose to use black, but I find it does make colours ‘sing out loud’.  Her piecing was spot on too and complimented by careful quilting.

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The second quilt I chose was Blue Moon made by Louisa Peers.  An original design, Louisa has used a combination of hand dyed and indigo fabrics pieces and quilted it in a simple, but very effective way.  The ‘blue moon’ was a beautiful flour resist indigo dyed piece of fabric Louisa made on one of our workshops.  The quilting was restrained, but beautifully executed;  this was my ‘I’d love to take this quilt home’ quilt.

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Ready,steady...

16/1/2015

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...go!  We are busy planning and preparing for InStitches at two national quilt shows this year.  First up, in June, we are at The National Quilt Championship at Sandown race course.  We will be also teaching a couple of workshops each day. We have designed this little pin cushion ( you can never have too many, at the last count I had 5 ...) .   We both love the log cabin block and made using a foundation piecing technique with our hand dyed fabrics and threads, how can you resist?  Make one for yourself and buy an extra kit to give to a friend!

All workshops can be booked on the day at the information desk in the main enterance hall.  See you there!

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0 Comments

Happy New Year!

12/1/2015

0 Comments

 
it's a rainy,rainy,rainy day here in Hampshire so I am having a very enjoyable day messing around in my sketchbooks with paint, water and glue.  Bliss!  What are you up to today?
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0 Comments

    Welcome to our blog! Here you'll find out what's been going on, plus plenty of ideas and inspiration and the odd cake recipe!

    Check back often to see what we're up to - it's great to have you along

    Hazel & Terry
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