I have been fusing fabric for a couple of days and thought that I really ought to see what I have, so I cut about a 3" wide strip off of each piece. Then I got a leftover sheet of release paper from the Wonder-Under and laid the strips by color, sorta on the sheets. That way I can leaf through them and easily access the contents. I began with set of pastel fabrics that have been waiting in the wings for two years. They look so nice together, but later I put them in their respective color families.
I use aqua and turquoise more than regular ol' blue, so await my order from Antony of that missing blue. here I just placed some commercial blue fabric to augment the blue set.
Greens! Science says we see more greens than any other color. And there are seemingly infinite varieties to collect, no? Yellow leaning, blue leaning, mixed with its complement to be khaki, mixed with black to be deep dark forest. Love them all.
Purple, violet, magenta. I have more on order, so I will be adding to this skimpy pile. It is more difficult to get a great purple dyed cotton, compared to dyed wool or silk, which can be dyed a screaming royal purple, so vivid. However I have a trick to make purples look richer: place them adjacent to yellow or yellow green and voila! they get more tangy.
Reds and pinks, which are again on the skimpy side, so I will have to fuse up more, especially the fucshias, which I use so often.
My gray set, still unfused. I have white and black to fuse too, and while I didn't show them here, there are lots of neutrals in my stash, from very light to deep. All of those will be fused and ready for the class assignments. It is necessary to be able to have something to work with quickly, so to begin, I will have all the participants cut about a 3 inch strip from each of their color sets (from the short side). We'll use these for the first class, but they will also be kept to use for compositions after that. 
What would you say would be the minimum number of different colors required to work with in class? Starting from zero here!
ReplyDeleteJanet (sorry, it appears as Anonymous on my iPad)
I have the same question. I have commercial solids that I have washed in Syntrapol. Will I be in trouble using these on this "learning" piece.
ReplyDeleteHas Antony said when he'll have the fabrics ready for your approval and our orders? I have to check my stash but don't have too many hand-dyed so I'm anxious to see what he offers. I hope they're clear and bright like yours!
ReplyDeleteReplying to Janet and Marybeth, In the beginning we will use about 8-10 pieces, and I am going to ask that you work just with the 3" wide strips, so you can keep the work surface to a minimum. Think back to first grade and that box of 8 Crayola crayons. Those elementary colors are perfect.
ReplyDeleteReplying to Susan, Antony has ordered my spec dyes and fabric and he has to then dye them, so next week sometime I expect he will be posting them on his Etsy site.
Marybeth: you will find that syntrapol is just a fancy name for regular detergent. It won't remove perma-press, wash and wear or easy care finishes. Commercial fabrics are more likely to fray, or peel off in time, so be aware.
ReplyDeleteQuestion 1: So are we to avoid gradients and other fabrics with multiple colors? Question 2: We only need 8-10 fabrics in wide color spectrum (8 crayons)? You showed a lot more fabrics than that. I am confused.
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