Clamp Dyeing Fabric
I am happy to report that our floor is finished and we finally have all of our furniture back. I am still unpacking and rearranging but we are definitely near the end of this mammoth project. I’m happy with the new floor and perhaps at some point, I will completely forget the experience of having it done.
My local art group had another get together in the midst of the floor redo and we did some clamp dyeing. I didn’t take any process photos but I do have some of the finished pieces.
We had five pots of acid dye on the stove including bright yellow, yellow ochre, brick red, dark turquoise and purple. You can fold your fabric however you want or not, and then you clamp different objects to the fabric to create a resist for the dye. You put the clamped fabric into the lightest dye pot first. Then you can unclamp, reclamp in a different pattern and put it into a different color. You work from lighter colors to darker colors. You can dip the fabric partially or put it into soak. The variation are endless.
We used a variety of fabric too. The wool we were using was a very thick, hairy wool blanket. It really had to be clamped tightly and the results weren’t as crisp as thinner fabric.
These pieces are cotton velveteen which actually worked really well with the acid dyes. You can see that the thinner fabric took the dye differently.
This piece was done with two metal bird shapes that are the same. They were clamped to the folded fabric on either side.
This is a piece of Kraftex that was folded and clamped, then dipped into various colors.
This is a piece of silk that was folded up tightly and clamped and then dipped into various colors of dye.
Here’s a few more pieces of wool blanket.
And Birdie was supervising the drying process on the porch!
We’re planning on using these fabric pieces to create fabric books. We will be working all year on creating the fabric, then the different pages with other techniques and then putting the books together.