Dyeing

I spent hours dyeing pieces of burlap, ripped up towels, canvas, and muslin. I also made some pieces with the photo transfer paper - print out the photo on an ink jet printer on t-shirt transfer paper and then I tried to transfer the image onto burlap, canvas, felt and cheesecloth. I had great hopes for the burlap and the felt, but neither one worked at all. The canvas worked well, but the more intriguing was the cheesecloth, you could still see the threads through the photo, plus the photo was kind of transparent. Some times the transfer paper didn't "transfer" and I ended up with a photo with torn gaps in it, but that also looked pretty cool. I tried dyeing the edges of the cheesecloth around the photos, but it was a bit tricky, because if the dye went under the photo it darkened it and the whole thing got ugly and it lost the transparency.


I also took my background burlap (48" x 84") outside for it's color treatment. Our driveway is sloping so I used that to help the dye flow off the burlap. I did 2/3s of the burlap with the greens - blues - purples, let it dry and then flipped it around to do the other 1/3 with reds - oranges and yellows. I poured some of the dye over it and also used a sponge dipped in dye to re-apply color in other areas and to do the center edge where I needed more control.

All of this dyeing stuff was really fun.