Hand Dyed Fabrics

Thinking about my fabrics for the tropical art quilt I experimented with different ways of colouring and dyeing pieces of cotton and calico. These are small samples that I recorded in my sketchbook and include cotton dyed with silk paints and salt crystals, shibori on silk, tie dye on cotton and calico with batik wax trailing and silk paints

Spaced dyed cottons and threads using cold water dyes















Calico with hot batik wax spooned on
Marks made with a fork
Coloured with copper metallic silk paints

















These are early experiments with batik wax
I'm pleased to notice that I've improved the technique
a fair bit since these early samples!













The patterns were made by scratching into the wax with a fork













Cotton dyed and salt crystals added to draw the dye














More dyed cotton with silk paints and salt crystals













Cotton tie-dyed in yellow - I used a Dylon cold water dye















Silk dyed with a shibori resist - coloured with silk paints
















More cotton dyed with silk paints and salt crystals

Batik

This was just a silly piece I made to get the design down on fabric. It's not technically good or anything but I have included it because it's colourful. I trailed wax (rather messily) on some calico, then coloured in the shapes using my favourite silk paints. I love silk paints so much they are very versatile and vibrant on all media. I lightly quilted the design with a piece of wadding and a calico backing and running stitch on the machine

Batik wax - mark making

I painted batik wax onto calico with a brush, then I scratched into the circles with a skewer, before applying silk paint

Batik

Very first attempt at batik (trailing wax on calico using a tjanting tool) - very messy with wax lines and drips of wax, but it kind of adds to the design! I painted the calico with silk paints

Batik Flowers

Detail of back cover

Sketch book - back cover

The back cover of my book - a batik fabric which I quilted