It's a very dark and gloomy time of the year in this part of the world. The days are short and the trees are bare. "The sun is spent" (
John Donne), "The sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing" (
John Keats), and so on... We haven't had any snow yet to brighten things up, so I'm doing my best to brighten up my world with fabric and dye.
I've made some wonderful discoveries about the Emo dye that I often use, which have helped me get results that are similar to those I've had with Procion MX dye earlier. What a thrill it is to open up a fabric bundle and discover the glorious colour you were hoping for! I could hardly contain myself the other day, when I discovered a way of using Emo with ice cubes.
Below are a few images to feast your eyes upon.
If you want fractured patterns, you need to heat up your Emo dye, and not just leave it batching, as you can do with Procion MX dye. Two months ago I didn't know how to achieve this degree of texture with Emo:
And if you recall the unsuccessful
shibori shrimp from two years back (I thought it was old dye, but it was really cold dye that was causing the problem), you'll be pleased to see that the shrimp is a lot spicier now. This is done with
mokume shibori, and I've sewn the stitches in a spiralling shape.
And the
pièce de résistance, as far as I'm concerned, is this successful attempt at ice cube dyeing with Emo. Emo isn't overly fond of cold, but by putting the fabric bundle in a hot water bath instead of batching it on top of the fridge as I usually do with Procion MX dye, I got a wonderful result:
I love the combination of golden yellow and dark pink. Perhaps I should try to make it into a dessert: mango-raspberry sorbet? Yum!
Thanks for visiting and I hope to see you again soon!
- Annika
