Dye Workshop

February 6, 2010 - Vauxhall City Farm.

I attended a dye workshop with Amar, where we got to learn informally about the natural dye process. It made a little bit more sense seeing it as opposed to just reading about it in books. We dyed wool yarn in Weld, Tansy, and Golden Rod.

First we put our yarn in a mordant, alum, which can be found in local supermarkets. We simmered the yarn in boiling mordant water for 45 minutes. This can also be done overnight in cold water and alum. After the mordanting process, we put the yarns in three different dye baths. Those were then simmered for 30 minutes. The results of those were:
1. weld - bright yellow
2. tansy - yellow green
3. golden rod - orange yellow.

Overall a good experience. Can't wait to try it ourselves in the dye workshop in the college. Don't know how successful we will be because we have to make a concentrate of the dyes. As in, take the dried marigold and boil and simmer it for 1 - 2 hours to get a concentrate before thickening it will indalca or manutex, a seaweed thickener.

Finished block...well almost :)

Here is my block heading towards completion. Can't wait to start printing it.

Next we've tried to build a dye bed, on which we will stamp our block before printing it on the fabric. It was not a great success but it is in the right direction.

The process

So, this is me carving my block. It took a while because it was a obstacle to get used to the tools and figuring out how to best use them. But, it is almost done! Warning: Block carving is harmful to the back. Ouchhhh.


And this is Amar, my Egyptian friend, trying to show me how to carve my block. :)

Toilet paper ahoy!

This is for a hospital project where we took toilet paper rolls and decorated them in our own ways to be displayed in cabinets along a hospital corridor. This is my bad attempt. :) Looks good on screen as opposed to in real life.

"Art is Long and Life is short, let us at least do something before we die" -william morris

These are pics from my progress review presentation in college. We were asked to sum up our past three months. It's been a hard task for many if not most. I had a lot of research done on my part but nothing much actual to show. However, after contemplating it and a little bit more work, I think it came out OK. I'm happy with the progress so far and look forward to moving onwards from here.
You can probably see from the pictures a few designs I've drawn up, patterns that I will be transferring to wooden blocks to be carved. Also, there is a block that I've started and it is in the process.