Its All About the Dye

Joan McMurray was our guest, she discussed her silk dyeing process, and shared examples of her beautiful work.

Joan is a member of Northern California Arts, and the Sacramento Fine Arts Center. She paints on silk, creating wearable art, and also paints with pastels and oils. She's is especially known for her silk painting, and is willing to share her knowledge as an instructor.

Joan McMurray

Silk scarf folded and tied, then dyed

Joan's silk scarf, folded shibori technique

Another example of folded and tied shibori

Folded shibori again

More examples of Joan's work

Artist:Joan McMurray
Leaves are hand painted, with resist

Artist: Joan McMurray
Hand painted on silk, with resist technique

Artist: Joan McMurray
Tie dye technique

Sandra Torguson also shared her experiences with silk dyeing

Sandra's lovely stash of dyed silk 

This scrunched up bundle

Became this lovely piece 
(I apologize for the blurred image)

This is what happens if you process
cotton fabric in the microwave

Scrunched up technique

Tied and folded

Tie-dye technique

Rolled and folded

Scrunched

Scrunched

And scrunched again

We thank Joan and Sandra for their informative and fun presentation. You can see more of Sandra's work on her blog 

http://sandrasmixedbag.blogspot.com

Sunni Hamillton brought some examples of her eco-dyeing experiments

You can view more of her process on her blog 

http://13dexperiments.blogspot.com

Marie Nelson brought two examples of quilt tops made from hand-dyed fabric. 

Both tops were made using hand-dyed fabrics made several years ago, following the instructions provided in Adriene Buffington's Hand-Dyed Fabric Made Easy, we used Procion dyes, large baggies, and various methods of adding textures such as folding, scrunching, pleating, clamping, potato resists and stamping.

Detail of Marie's quilt tops

Peggy Sahmaunt also brought pieces to show. Peggy says about her work: 

This piece is another in my concentric circles series, now entitled Fireworks -- Green.  The most frequent question is, "Do you use an adhesive for those little triangles?"  The answer is a resounding, "No!"  The process as it stands today, uses only a basting thread, and a bead for each one. This was one of about 25 pieces I completed during a year of recovery from a couple of surgeries.  

 I'll be teaching a class at Quilters Corner on October 23 for those interested in learning some of my personal quirks and processes!  

Detail

Detail

And more detail

This red, black and white piece seemed to me a bit simplistic, but several in the group told me it was definitely not that at all.  Each group of circles and squares is attached by beads around the edge, and includes a center that, as someone in the group so aptly put it, "Dimensional... the centers are dimensional!"  There are some small bells from India, lots of French knots, silver cones , and a few buttons that are there in place of the usual quilting stitches.

Artist: Peggy Sahmaunt

Detail

And more detail