Category: Dyeing

Posted in Dyeing, Fiber

Of Fabric & Dyeing

Posted on by debthumanblog

I had a less than wonderful dyeing session. I thought I was doing things to eliminate freckles. Instead, I got more freckles than I thought possible in the three tee shirts I dyed.

I used three new-to-me Procion dyes from Dharma Trading: deep purple, hydrangea, and shiitake mushroom. I doubt over dyeing will eliminate the freckles. The shiitake mushroom shirt is beyond rescuing. Jim suggested I use it as a workout tee shirt. That idea has possibilities. I’ll be picking out specific embroidery patterns that express where I’m headed and work out goals.

The other two, I’ll embroider and just wear them. I’ll call the freckles a design element and try to convince myself I meant for the tee shirts to come out like they did.

I had better luck with fabric designs.

You’ll find these in the Irish Chain Variations collection in my Spoonflower shop here: https://www.spoonflower.com/collections/719273-irish-chain-variations-by-deb_thuman

These are in my Log Cabin Variations collection here: https://www.spoonflower.com/collections/735809-log-cabin-variations-by-deb_thuman

Looking or jewelry or a spiffy dog bandana? My online store, Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

Posted in Dyeing, Embroidery machine, Fiber

I’m Having Fun With The Embroidery Machine

Posted on by debthumanblog

And learning.

This is down time for me. The semester has ended. No more trying to paint in the same room with the hate criminal. No more fear of being attacked while walking from my car to the art building. No more terrorist encampments. Now, it’s me time. Time to recuperate. Time to heal. Time to make art. It ain’t called art therapy for nothing.

Threads need to be clipped and it’s a bit off center. And a bit uphill. But it says what I want. Yes, I dyed the tee shirt.

I wanted to make Brady a Pride bandana. I ran out of bobbin thread, hit the wrong button and had to rip out the darker blue hand. Ripping out embroidery is horrible. It’s worse than ripping out an errantly serged seam. I’ve decided that Pride is for diversity and inclusivity and the darker blue hand represents those who have been injured at their workplace. I was all set to sew up the bandana, and discovered the markings I had made had disappeared. I was wondering how long the marks from the markers I recently bought would last. Apparently 2 days is the limit.

This is a hand-dyed tee shirt. I played around with variegated threads. There aren’t rigid categories into which we stuff people. Pick a group. Any group. Is every member the same? Nope. Diversity among the diverse.

Hand-dyed tee shirt with Laurel Burch designs. I didn’t have the exact thread colors, so I decided to wing it. I got some interesting results.

There will be more embroidery. More tee shirts. More bandanas. I went shopping at Sam’s Club and discovered I need some larger size grocery bags for shopping at Sam’s. I make our grocery bags. Some are made out of upholstery fabric. Some are made from hand-dyed muslin. I recently found some upholstery fabric that is a mystery. No idea where it’s from or when I got it. I do know I don’t want to use it for upholstery. Might be good for larger size grocery bags, though.

I need help with my online shop, Deb Thuman Art http://www.DebThumanArt.com What would make my store more attractive? What would bring more traffic to my store?

Spoonflower has changed to an interesting format. I can now proof my designs online rather than ordering proofs. I’ve been adding to my design collections. My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

Posted in Brady, Dyeing, Fiber, Judiasm

Happy Birthday Brady

Posted on by debthumanblog

Brady, the world’s cutest labradoodle, will be celebrating her third birthday on Tuesday.

Brady is learning to be my service dog, and we had a service dog group session yesterday. To celebrate her birthday, I made 20 hand-dyed dog bandanas. The humans for the four other dogs in the service dog group picked out bandanas for their dogs.

Rather than doing tie dye with string, I used binder clips to make a resist.

We’re having a critique in my painting class on Tuesday. I thought I was done with three self-portraits, but I saw a fourth in my head and it demanded to be painted.

The word on the yellow painting is the Hebrew word for life.

The words on the green painting are the Hebrew for “I am,” and “I will be.”

I still have no voice on campus, but I will not be silent.

Posted in Dyeing, Fiber, Sewing

Sewing & Dyeing

Posted on by debthumanblog

I’ve been sewing. And dyeing. I altered a pattern to make tee tops, and tweaked again to make tops from woven fabric.

For the most part, I like these tops. I think they would have been more successful in a different fabric. These are all made from 100% cotton. I’d like to try sewing with batiste, but there’s no batiste for sale locally. I could order batiste online, but I’ve never worked with batiste and I’d like to be able to feel the fabric before buying.

The 100% cotton knit tops were more successful and incredibly comfortable. I bought 10 yards of white cotton knit from Dharma Trading with the intention of making tee tops. Wrestling 10 yard of 60″ wide fabric isn’t easy and I wish I had a 30′ long cutting table. I used an eight foot long table and set it up in the kitchen. After I got the tee tops made, I dyed them. There are five tops and three are solid colors. Here are the wild ones.

I folded the fabric horizontally and then tied it with strips of fabric. The design is a bit more subtle than I anticipated, but I like it.

For this one, I tied buttons into the fabric and used twist ties to hold the buttons in place. The trick is to make sure none of the circles fall on an embarrassing part of the body.

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

My online store, Deb Thuman Art, is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman