Soy wax resist results

Here are my results from using the soy wax resist.

I love the results but hate the effort.  I have to admit, I hate removing the wax from the fabric. The soy wax is supposed to melt if you wash it in the wash machine on hot, but I have not had good luck with this method. I end up with lots of wax bits in the wash machine, and our house is over 100 years old so I don't really like testing our plumbing system this way either.  I have been putting them in super hot water and rubbing the wax off by hand. This is not fun, and the water is uncomfortably hot.  Next time I will probably iron it off with newsprint paper to absorb the wax.  Better yet, I will try other resists.

This is actually a lovely olive green, not gray-blah.

 Here is the purple galaxy. I love how this turned out. I am sure I will add to it with paint or fiber.

 I put too much resist on this yellow galaxy, it is way too yellow. It will be getting some opaque fabric paint and who knows what else to improve it.

 Purple stripe resist:

Soda can resist:

Overall, the results are great. Of course I dyed some other fabric since I had tubs of dye made, but they did not have the wax resist on them so I am not showing them here.

Second Saturday art club, soft cut stamps

Second Saturday club was on the 3rd Saturday due to some schedule conflicts.  Sabyl taught us to make handmade stamps from Speedball soft cut material and linoleum cutting tools.  We made multiple stamps from a 4" x 6" piece of material. We drew out designs on copy paper with a pencil, then set the paper face down on the material and rubbed it with a bone folder to get the pattern to transfer. Then we cut it out using the linoleum cutting tools.

Here is Sabyl and her work (examples for class and some new ones made during class).

Simone and her awesome owl.

Susan C and her work.

 
Enid and her cool leaves. This is going to look fantastic!

 

Shannon and her very detailed piece (if you ever do carve stamps, don't put your other hand in the path of the cutter. Shannon was being very careful).

Here are mine.

It was a great time. I brought bacon chocolate chip cookies. The whole room smelled like bacon.  I had to leave a little early as we were having some people over for smoked pizza. We have a smoker in the backyard.  I didn't take any pictures of the pizza but it was delicious. Here are pics of the cookies, and the caramel salt pecan pie that I made. The pie disappeared really fast. I think I have enough ingredients to make another one!

 

Next I will post my soy wax resist results.  Enid gave me some great linen fabric, and I am trying an ombre dyeing technique on it.  They get washed tomorrow, we will see how well it worked in a future post.

Soy wax resist

 I have taken some fabric dyeing classes from Jo Fitsell (awesome lady, awesome teacher) so have done soy wax resist previously in her classes.  I went to the fancy local art supply store to buy soy wax (actually stopped by twice about two weeks apart) and they were always out.  I really did not want to have to order online and pay for shipping.  While I was reading up on soy wax resist on the internet, someone talked about using microwavable soy wax that was meant for candle making, but using it for fabric resists.  Hello Michael's, here is my 40% off coupon, and we were off and running. I went to the thrift store and bought a Corningware dish with a handle and a lid that was microwave safe.  It was not super big, so I could fit about half the wax in it.  I microwaved it a minute at a time, as the directions said to be very careful as it could catch fire.  Once it was melted, I put the lid on it and I took it outside to my outside table setup (the lid was nice as I didn't have to worry about spilling hot wax on myself while walking there).  For this adventure, I had my standard 6'x 2.5' table. On top of this I put my two pieces of insulation board next to each other, which I typically use for sun printing. I taped them together with blue painters tape.  This made my work surface about 6' x 6'.  I then taped two layers of blueprint paper on top, as the wax will leak through the fabric and I didn't want it harming my insulation board.

I did not pin down my fabrics. I just set them on top of the paper. Once I added marks with the soy wax, I moved them onto the grass in the shade while the wax hardened. I used a 2" wide coarse paint brush from Home Depot. It is my understanding the brushes should be natural hair, not synthetic.  I also like to use a metal spoon to dribble and sort of write with (this is now a craft spoon and cannot be used for food). I own one tjanting tool and used it a bit, but not much.

This fabric is a somewhat heavy silk that had been dyed previously but was dreadfully boring. I added circles and dribbles.

Below is an ice dyed fabric that I want to make look like a galaxy or constellation. It is hard to see the wax, I did a sphere offset to the left from the center, a couple of oval rings around it and spattered wax to mimic stars.

 This is another ice dyed fabric also to become a space quilt.  I have a large blob offset to the left and splatters radiating from it. The first picture is when I was just starting and the second is after I was done applying wax.

 

This was a previously folded and dyed piece of silk, I added lines (the dark ones are the wax) and spatters.

 This is a silk that had color removed and was re-dyed and still was super boring. I used the bottom of a soda can to make the circles.

The wax should look dark on the fabric, not white. If it is white, check the back side of the fabric and make sure the wax is penetrating through the fabric. If it is not penetrating, the wax needs to be a little warmer.  There are lots of white spots on my fabrics, but from the back side they all penetrated.

Also, please note that when you put your fabrics in the shade and go work on another piece, make sure you move the pieces as the shade moves. The wax will re-melt if left in the sun. I had an "Ack!" moment during this session.

My soy wax pieces have hardened, so they get a dip in my dye batches. Today we have dark cherry (with black added), blue (with some black added) and a mix of Wasabi and Olive Green. When bucket dyeing, the fabric, and therefore the wax, will get scrunched, which will create interesting cracks in the wax. 

Next time, the results.

Sunprinting with acrylic paint

I am experimenting with using acrylic paint instead of Setacolor transparent paints for making sun prints on fabric.  I used up most my Setacolor paints in the past weeks and cannot find a store locally that carries them, so I thought I'd experiment with acrylic paints and see how they turn out.  I did use the Setacolor paint for one sample for comparison. I used dried stalks from my poppies and also included a leaf in each. I watered down the paints to be a watercolor paint consistency.

To the left is the Setacolor, to the right is Martha Stewart acrylics.

 On this board, Golden Open acrylics is on the left and Golden Fluid Acrylics is on the right:

After they dried in the sun, the Setacolor sample looked okay, but the rest barely showed the poppy stems at all.

Setacolor:

Martha Stewart acrylic:

 Golden Fluid acrylic:

Golden Open Acrylic:

I thought there was still hope as the leaves all showed up pretty nicely. So I decided to try doing the experiment again, but with plastic doilies to act as stencils since they would be nice and flat against the fabric.

Below are the samples with paint and with the doilies on top.  Again, I watered down the paints, and I pre-wetted the fabrics (sprayed them with water from a spray bottle). I worked quickly and did them all at the same time.

The results are really good, here they are after drying in the sun and the doilies removed.  So I'd say this was a success.  I didn't like the Martha one as much as the others, the white areas were not a white as with the other paints.

Standard acrylic paints are not really meant for fabric (although the Martha Stewart paints say they can be used on fabric) and I did not add textile medium to them.  I decided to put them to another test. After a few days, I ironed all of the pieces on high (use a press cloth between your iron and the fabric, paint residue will get on your iron without it - I use a Teflon one, and put parchment under the fabric to protect my board).  Then I stuck them in the washer and dryer.  I washed them in cold on a short cycle, and dried them on low heat.  They still look pretty good. 

I still think I like the Setacolor best. It seems to sun print better. The Setacolor paint does have a peculiar smell, but not enough to stop me from using it. 

On to the next adventure, I used soy wax as a resist on some fabrics recently so I will post about those next.

A fun art weekend, museum, 1st Friday, and crafts

Friday afternoon I met my friend Melanie and we went to the Denver Art Museum. My favorite new work on display is this installation piece with dining tables and chairs all painted red, with gray foxes posed throughout. Very interesting.

Later we met up with my husband to walk Sante Fe Blvd for 1st Friday art walk.  We usually start with a margarita at El Noa Noa (Melanie gets a gimlet), then walk the galleries.  Melanie works for the school paper for Metro State and her friend Colby Brumit had an exhibit at Anthology Fine Art.  He had quite a few digital prints that reminded me of screen prints.  My favorites were these paper collages that were sewn together.

We hadn't been down for the 1st Friday art walk in a while. It was packed as usual. There were a ton of food trucks down there and Allen got a brisket sandwich.  It seems like there are quite a few places that now are modern vintage antiques or cute shops instead of being an art gallery.  There has been a fabric store down there for about a year (very cute shop, just seemed out of place with the art scene).  Now there is a bead store, a jewelry store, and a yoga studio as well.  I know that art is not always easy to sell, but it would be sad to see Sante Fe become a shopping area instead of an art district.  But cash is king, and it's better to have a shop that makes a profit than an art gallery that goes belly up, I suppose.

Saturday Allen and I went to Boulder, he had to stop by his office, and I convinced him to go to a craft fair with me. It was run by fireflyhandmade.com. It had a lot of cute stuff. The booths setups looked very professional and it made me realize I really need to focus on a few types of art/craft instead of dabbing in absolutely everything.  They had a couple food trucks here as well, they really are sprouting up all over.  Some of the booths incorporated vintage autos which was cool. Here is studio 22 with a green pickup. There were a couple of VW vans and some others I don't remember. It sounds like Firefly handmade will have another craft fair in December.

Allen made dinner Saturday night. We had leftover pulled pork in the freezer so he made pork tacos with mango salsa.  I had wanted a fig dish, so he made roasted peaches and figs with creme fraiche and a balsamic reduction.  Super good.

Since we still had some leftover pulled pork, for breakfast Sunday I added them to eggs, made some small pancakes, poured on some maple syrup and made my version of a McGriddle sandwich. Gotta love it!