Transform a Textile

Every year Barbara from  the MX Dyers list, very kindly sends out an "ugly' fabric that she has dyed. Her challenge is for  the person who recievesthis fabric to transform it in some way, using Procion dyes as part of the process.

This year I got a fabric which was more boring than ugly- A textured pale peach fabric and this is the story of what I did to it:

So, this is what I recieved.

First I hand painted it roughly with some dyes I had left over from other work, allowing the peach to modify the colours and show through in places.

Thinking it looked a bit like a rusty screen,  I screen printed on some 'graph paper' using textile paints to give it a screenlike texture

Next, I screen printed with some thickened dyes using a photoscreen I made some time ago from some marks I had made with charcoal.

And finally, I selected a motif from the larger screen and printed with a discharging agent to give some added illumination to th ein between spaces.

Detail of the final surface.

After an intense week of teaching summer school, it's really good to be challenged to do some work of my own,   - so thank you Barbara!