Hand dying fabric with Dylon fabric paint

Many moons ago, including at least 2 blue and a blood moon, @Dylon_UK asked bloggers if they were interested in using their dye and I thought it would be great fun to play with dye so contacted them as instructed. I was overjoyed when they said I was in, and *may* have overlooked that they were sending me paint instead of the dye I thought they were sending - but then I only know Dylon from dye and not paint. They were wonderful and asked me which colours I wanted and I couldn't choose so said "surprise me" and boy was I surprised!

Initially I was full of idea's but I can't actually paint so kept on hitting the brick wall of "this looks awful". So I ended up putting it aside as a project till I did get an idea. I'm glad I did in the end as I did get an idea of what to do and it's completely out of the box, which is more my style anyway when it comes to crafting.

If anyone reading this thinks this is a complaint then please don't as this is just me explaining why it took me so many months to get this blog post written as promised. I love a challenge and this was certainly that!

So just to be clear: although Dylon kindly sent me the paints I used, the way I used them and what I have written are entirely my own thoughts, ideas and opinions.

With that bit over it's time to tell you what I did with the paints... I used them to hand dye embroidery fabric! It might seem a bit odd but I found it works really well.

Materials:

• Dylon fabric paint, I used royal blue (8) and turquoise (28) but any colour of the normal range works well.
• Small containers to mix the paint in
• Spoons or something else to stir with, one per colour paint you make
• Fabric - I used 18ct and 20ct Aida embroidery fabric
• Paintbrush
• Optional: plant spray that hasn't been used to spray chemicals.

Experiments made before I got started: drops, swirls and stripes

Notes:

• Dylon fabric paint was NOT made to be used like this and results may vary according to the material you use the paint on.
• Dylon fabric paint for dark fabric does not like being diluted and is therefore not suitable for this method.
• Before starting it's important to protect your work surface as this is going to get a bit messy. I put down a layer of newspaper and followed that with a plastic shopping bag I had cut open - a bin (garbage) bag works well too - just make sure you have plenty of space around the fabric you use.
• Any creases in the news paper or plastic bag can result in the paint pooling which can affect the end result.
• When I started this it was a huge experiment so I started on a few scraps of 18ct Aida I had left over from another project, I suggest you play around on some scraps first to see what pattern you like before working on a larger project. 
• If the paints are not spreading enough either use a plant spray filled with water or dip your fingers in water and splash that on the fabric and the paint will spread more.
• Once mixed the paint keeps for a week or so if you keep it covered (or if you forget just add water and mix well)

Instructions:

• First you need to mix your paints. 1/2 a coffee spoon (about 2-3 ml) mixed with a tablespoon of water makes the paint thin enough to work with. Stir the mixture till all the paint is diluted
• You can mix colours! I made 4 colours using the 2 paints I chose to use: 
• Just royal blue
• Just turquoise
• 1 part royal blue and 2 parts turquoise
• 2 parts royal blue and 1 part turquoise
• Hand wash your fabric to remove any sizing or other chemicals from the production process so that the fabric takes the dye.
• If you wring the fabric you might create creases which will affect the dye result, if this is what you want go for it, otherwise hold it up for a bit to let most of the water drip out.
• You need to keep the fabric wet to let the paint spread.
• Give the paint another stir before starting, this means that any bits that you missed earlier will be mixed in.
• I used a small paintbrush to make the spots and drops on the fabric.

• Start with one colour and cover the fabric with spots before moving on to the next colour
• Keep adding colours till you are happy with the result, remember that as it dries the colours will continue to spread.

I added more paint after this but sadly forgot to take a photo.

• It will take quite some time for the fabric to dry so it's best to leave it overnight to dry.
• Heat set the fabric according to the instructions on the paint.
• Hand wash, dry and iron again to remove any creases from washing and you are ready to use your fabric for whatever you wish!
• You can see the result I got from this at the top of this post.

I also experimented with hand dying embroidery floss... but that's something for another post.

I hope you enjoyed this post, if you do use this to dye your own fabric I'd love to see your results!

My hand dyeing adventure

Note before reading: this post is word heavy at the top and picture heavy at the bottom - I had not originally planned on doing a blog post about this but then decided that I wanted to share a whole load of photo's and this was the best place for it. If you don't want to read the how I did it stuff just skip to the bottom and enjoy the photo's.

Not so long ago I splurged and got myself a king sized wool filled 4 seasons duvet. My old one was also wool and 4 seasons but I'd previously been sold an extra long single person duvet and it's only because I am so short that it was "long enough", when used on it's side, to cover me. I had used this old duvet for years and just got tired of it being so short. A new duvet meant new duvet covers and while I found one that was okish I couldn't find another that I liked enough to buy.

So... A trip to IKEA got me a plain white duvet cover set, sheet and extra pillow cases as the duvet set only had 2 in it and I need 6. Then a trip to the shops got me 4 packs of Dylon dye - 2 in sunflower yellow and 2 in ocean blue. The plan was to tie dye the lot and have splashes of blue, yellow, green and white.  In the past I have always used the dye for the washing machine so doing it by hand was a new adventure. The old tins had always put me off as they were so complicated to use but these "new" packets are a lot more user friendly so I decided to take the plunge.

When I started the actual task of wrapping string around the corner of a pillow case, I soon realised it would take me a gazillion days to do so as my hands didn't like the job and it was also hard on my iffy shoulder. Those of you who don't know me won't know that I am the lucky recipient of palindromic rheumatism, arthritis, a dodgy back and some other joint issues thanks to working too hard so any task that requires repetitive movements is going to hit me hard. I decided that it would be a better idea to dip dye instead - easier on the hands etc. *wink*

After washing out the old baby bath I had lurking in my garage that my oldest had kindly carried up to the bathroom for me, I proceeded to mix up the first lot of dye - the yellow. The dye once mixed with water in the jug was a lovely orange and I was glad I didn't skimp on getting rubber gloves or I'd have had garish yellow/blue hands by the end of this. I then proceeded to ignore the instructions as what I had planned required more water so less dye per litre of water.  I knew in advance that this would result in a lighter colour.

This is why they say to use a bowl or stainless steel sink!

I half filled the baby bath with warm water, added the required salt and then the dye. As I had never dip dyed and I couldn't remember what order I had to do the dipping I decided to put it in to the half way point first and pull a bit out as time went by.  I squished the submerged fabric around for about 5 minutes - about 10 less than you are supposed to do as I didn't want a flat finish but splodges and blodges, just like you'd get with tie dyeing.

I draped the duvet and sheet over a plastic step so it would not lie on the floor. Doing it this way is messy - the dye tends to drip a bit if you don't squeeze any excess dye out first. Don't do it this way if you are not in a tiled area that is easy to clean. Once the last bit had been in the bath for around 45 minutes I took it out and did my best to rinse it out as much as possible, doing the pillow cases was easy but the sheet and duvet were a lot more difficult.

I spread the items on the tiled floor so the white undyed parts wouldn't get in contact with the dyed parts. I then poured the leftover dye into a tub and threw an old white sheet in that looked a bit grubby as it had gone slightly greyish and needed a bit more life added to it - I wasn't sure if this was going to have any effect but I knew that the sheet couldn't get any worse than it was already. I left that sheet to soak for a couple of hours.

Then it was time for the blue dye - even though the yellow dye had been orange seeing the purple that was the result of the packets of blue dye made me rather worried, especially when the first bit of white fabric into the bath turned lilac. I took a deep breath and decided to give it some time thinking that if the worst came to the worst nothing would happen that could not get fixed by a trip to the washing machine with a pack or 2 of black washing machine dye. This time round I was trying it the other way - slowly putting more fabric into the bath as time went by.

Like with the yellow dye I did my best to rinse out the blue dye but by this time my back had decided to play up and it was very painful to do so when the worst was off I decided to see if the washing machine could get the rest out.  I was thrilled with the results so far despite noticing that I'd not pushed the fabric in far enough to get a green area between the yellow and blue. and really hoped that the bright yellow and bright blue I saw would be what I ended up with. I then chucked 2 faded bottle green sheets into the blue dye to give them a little oomph that they were missing. I do like re-using dye, though really one should not as it's mostly stopped working by then.

I carefully carried it all up to the attic and made sure to put the blue dyed area's at the bottom of the machine with the yellow on top. and washed it according to the instructions. I hung up the pillow cases on hangers and the duvet cover and sheet over the banister.

2 days later it was all finally dry and I could get it onto my bed and take photo's

 This is the sheet, as you can see the yellow is not so bright but it's still a very nice yellow and certainly suits the paintwork (not visible in this shot).

 Here it all is on my bed, the 6 pillow cases on the pillows, the duvet cover and the sheet hidden under it - it really brightens the room!

A side shot so you can see the colour changes on the cover.

Here is an attempt at showing the special thing that happens in artificial light - the yellow seems to change to a very light spring green - so wonderful that it changes like that! It's probably due to the excess blue dye when I put it in the washing machine.

All in all I'm happy with the results and I know I'll be using Dylon's hand dye dyes again - just on something smaller next time hehe.

The next side project - dying the fabric

For the next project I wanted to make a more patterned background in browns so I had a look around the house for things that I could use that were brown. A look in the fridge provided me with some prune jam that rather unfortunately had decided to become a science experiment since I'd last used it so I decided that I could try with that instead of just chucking it out. I did of course first remove the science experimental bit and just used what was underneath and as yet unscientific. I made the paint in the same way as I had when I made the paints last time and it smelled rather pleasant to my relief. As you can see above I painted circles with the prune paint then i made some coffee paint and filled in the circles with it

I then let it all rest and think about life for a bit before giving it a wash in the sink with warm water and some washing up liquid. The end result is a lot less bright but it does give a nice texture for the embroidery it's made for.

 I'm happy with the result and can't wait to see what it will look like when the embroidery is complete!

8 Colour challenge - Part 1: Preparing the fabric

I decided to enter another competition on Deviant Art - the 8 colour competition. The challenge is to use at least 5 of the following colours in an embroidery:

• Black
• Orange
• Purple
• Green
• Silver
• Red
• Ecru
• Glow-in-the-Dark

 I love the idea and had a think about what to do - what I came up with is a night time scene so I wanted a darker fabric to do the embroidery on. I don't have any dark fabric on hand and can't spare the cash for some so soon after my bedroom re-vamp so I decided to do a bit of witch style stuff in the kitchen and cooked up my own fabric dyes made with what I had in the house already.


I made "brown" with reduced coffee and some cornstarch to make it more spreadable and I made "black" with the extra, extra salty liquorice I had lying around the house that nobody liked. Unfortunately I made both a bit too thick so they didn't spread too well and were a bit lumpy on the fabric but since I was going for large sections of colour it was ok

Once I'd "painted" it all on I left it for about 30 minutes and then rinsed it off in a sink full of water and vinegar to set the dye. Then I removed as much water as possible and then ironed it dry.

The white square you see is the starting colour and as you can see the black didn't really take so well and just became a pale grey. The brown is a bit darker but overall for an experiment with something I've never done before this was a decent result.

I will be using this for the 8 colour contest embroidery - I think it will give it just that bit more depth than plain cream fabric would do and will certainly show off the glow in the dark thread I'm planning on using.

Another mass update

I seem to be having a great deal of trouble remembering to make updates here in-between all the finishing of projects that I have been doing.I need to remember that just throwing my photo's at Deviant art isn't enough and I need to also update here.

So here is what I've been up to since my last update:

This time something different.. inspired by the #ArtisanCraft creative craft challenge. I found these plastic button things that you could embroider in the sewing shop when I was getting eyelets for the corset I made last week (no photo yet - I'd taken it with me to England last week and mailed it home as it was too heavy for my suitcase - damned Ryan Air max carry on weight restrictions!) and thought they'd be fun to play with, they are but they are also rather fiddly to hold as well.

They are 7/8 inch - 2,25 cm across and embroidered with a full strand of DMC in 3 shades of blue and ecru.

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Happy birthday DA!

Sources and inspiration:

The DA llama badges
The DA logo
The DA 10 birthday badge that I changed to show a 12
I was inspired the colour of Peridot (August's birthstone) when I made the "12" badge green.

I made the flapping cloaks of the super llama's different in an attempt to show that they were indeed flapping.

I mounted the embroidery on a pale pink card and gave it a slightly smaller blue glossy card border as the front of the card.

Sizes:

Complete Embroidery: not quite 3 1/4" by a smidge over 4"
Colours used overall: 84
Complete card: 5 7/8" x 7 3/8"

Llama's :
18 x 15 stitches each
Brown has 30 colours, albino has 32 colours
7/8" x 1" each

"12" Birthday badge:
17 x 26 stitches
23 colours
1" x a smidge over 1 3/8"

DA Logo:
23 x 23 stitches
2 colours
a smidge over 1 1/4 " square

"Happy Birthday" message:
57 x 23 stitches
1 colour (I just love variegated thread!)
3" x a smidge over 1 3/8 "

All sizes are given Width x height, this also applies to the stitch numbers.
Patterns available on request.
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Oh wow!! I won 3rd place with this! Thanks!!

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I revamped my bedroom because the bed had broken and I thought it was high time I painted the walls since it still had the decorations from when I painted it for oldest when he was 2 and moved into the room. The photo's below show the room the evening it was more or less finished

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I started finishing my UFOs (UnFinished Objects) to finally get them done. 

This is the first of my UFO's that I've completed.

I have no idea when I started this but it was a good 6 years ago at the very least. It was less than half finished when i picked it up again and took me about a day to complete. I finished it at last today

It's the Lanarte kit 36016 - I left out the word "Narcissus" to the right because I don't like that kind of thing in embroideries.

Stats:
16 colours
3" x almost 4 1/2 " / 7,6 cm x 11,5 cm

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The dog rose is one of my favourite roses - I love the smell and will sniff the flowers *even though* they give me a nasty allergy attack afterwards (yes I know.. I just can't help myself lol)

This is the second UFO I've completed in my attack of the UFO's and one which I was dreading for some reason - it was really easy to do in the end and only took me a couple of hours to complete. The frame was part of the kit (Permin of Copenhagen kit 13-0172)

Stats:
10 colours
1 thread over the weave
1 3/4" x 2 5/8"/ 4,5 x 6,5 cm

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This was made for the #stitchingpirates Tiny Pillow Cross Stitch Contest! . I was planning on something rather larger and more complicated but time was against me I decided that since this was a mini pillow competition I'd make mine *really* small

As one of my main goals in art is to use what I have on hand as much as possible I applied the same principals to this project.

Materials used:
Embroidery fabric: a 2 1/2 inch/ 6,5 cm scrap of 18 count/7 squares per cm white Aida
DMC floss in 12 colours: 699, 700, 701, 702, 703, 704, 740, 741, 742, 743, 744, 745
A 2 1/2 inch/ 6,5 cm scrap of Bali batik
Stuffed with mini scraps of quilting fabric

Stats
Finished size: 2"/5 cm
Number of stitches: 1024
Size of corner tassels 1/2 " / 1,25 cm

I have for a long time thought of doing something with quilt blocks in embroidery and although I haven't actually done much with Log cabins in quilting I do love the resulting look of them. I made this pattern based on 4 blocks of the "uneven log cabin" (an example of the quilt pattern is here: [link] ) turned so that the skinny "logs" were all in the centre and the wider ones made the outside edges. I had originally planned on adding backstitches in black to show where the "seams" would be but when I did some on the embroidery it looked horrid so I spent an age removing all the backstitches and wished I'd had time to do a sample first.

My stitches aren't as even as usual for 3 reasons:
1) I'd used a piece of Aida that was too small for any of my embroidery rings and so couldn't put it under tension to keep it even and had to make do with the way I held the bit of fabric.
2) My hands didn't like the above and complained bitterly but time was too short to put it away for a few days as I was expecting to need at least a day for all the backstitches that I didn't do in the end.
3) When removing the backstitching some of the time I caught a stitch and pulled it - I have done my best to return them to where they should be but it didn't always work and 2) means I can't go back and re-do stuff as I need to rest my hands.

Solution for 1 will be to use a larger piece of Aida next time OR baste it to some fabric and then put it in the frame (didn't remember that trick till I was writing this lol)
The solution to the other two is to start sooner, or choose to wait for the next competition if I'm too short of time.

I chose the colour of the backing fabric because it had the colours of the embroidery in it.

I made 1/2" tassels with the darkest embroidery thread as I like how that looks on pillows. It was a bit of a challenge to make them look nice and even as this was the first time I'd ever made tassels.

After I'd finished the embroidery I washed and pressed it and then carefully attached the tassels to the seam allowance of the embroidery to keep them in place while I sewed and after it was finished. I then pinned the backing fabric to the embroidery and hand sewed it all in place leaving what turned out to be a too small a hole to turn the stiff Aida through easily but with a bit of patience, a *lot* of easing and a chopstick I was able to turn it the right way round.

Next time I will first sew on a border of normal fabric before sewing it to the back as that will mean that the side seams are all the same fabric strength and stiffness and it will make the corners easier to turn and more pointy (although with this pillow I am not too displeased with how the corners turned out ) I will also leave a larger opening to turn through.

Keeping the work the same way round was a bit of a challenge as it looks the same from every angle so in the end I used a bit of thread to baste a couple of stitches to the top so I'd know which way round it was. With the frame on I don't have this issue as it's easy to tell which way is up due to the closure.

Overall I'm reasonably happy with the results

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Edit:

WOW!

I won joint first prize with *pinkythepink !! Thanks!!

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Last July Project Educate on Deviant Art held a Artisans Crafts week and one of the things there was the "Try something new challenge" I fully intended to join in by making a book myself but time ran out on me and I didn't get round to it.

Having decided to make a book myself I didn't want to set this aside as a project and now that I had a bunch of other stuff out of the way (such as my mini pillow and holiday) I thought I'd try my hand at making a Coptic bound journal. I wasn't sure what to do for the cover or pages till I saw the monthly AC challenge maps and lost places which sparked my imagination.

Before I started I read just about every tutorial in the tutorial section and watched some video's on youtube as seeing how a stitch is done is much easier than trying to work out how the drawing was done.

As one of my main goals in art is to use what I have on hand as much as possible I looked around the house for old maps and travel books looking for maps to include on the cover. Unfortunately I only had a couple of small pamphlets that were left over from a biking holiday + from a day trip to a town as well as an old guide to the Algarve so I wasn't able to use a single map for all of it. I used the pamphlets for 3 of the outer covers and some cut out maps from the guide book for the front inner cover. I allowed the folds of the maps to show as it adds texture to the completed journal and shows that real maps were used.

I didn't have much paper of the same colour to hand so I decided to choose the colours based on the different colours you see on maps:
Green for the woods/fields
Yellow for the main roads
White for the smaller roads

All the signatures are made from 4 sheets of paper folded in half to make 8 leaf signatures. I had enough to make 2 signatures in green, 2 in yellow and one in white.

I used the back of a writing pad for the thicker cardboard for the covers.

In my search for stuff I had found an old awl I'd been given at the same time as a 1903 cobblers treadle, it was pretty blunt but there was also a neat little whetstone in the box so I first learnt how to sharpen an awl before using it to make the holes for the stitching. I used the eyelet making tool that I'd used for my corset to make the holes in the covers.

I used DMC embroidery floss (colour 798) for the sewing so I could match the colour of the thread to the blue of the maps (used to make routes) and added some beads and other bits to both of the top holes to add a bit of interest to the book and helps one remember what is the top. I tried to use things that one might have found lying around while travelling: shells, leaves, a coffee bean, a "silver" bead.

I had fun making this and am glad I decided to try my hand at book making

Stats:
Height: 6 1/4" / 16 cm
Width: 4 1/2" /11,5 cm
Thickness: 5/8"/ 1,5 cm

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This is the 3rd UFO I have hauled out of the box and finished.
It was supposed to be a "quilt" with a width 3 of the square patterns and a hight of 4 of them. The pattern has a 1995 copyright on it and I think I must have bought it around that time - not much later than 1996 anyway.

I had to start with a bit of stitch removal because I'd miscounted and some of the stitches were one stitch too far to the left AND I'd been confused by the colours because the kit had said that the "blue" had the white (that I didn't use in the end) in it - in my kit the green did - and with the green and blue so close It was easy to be confused.

I really didn't like the way the green and blue background colours (yes there are two) almost blend together because they are (IMO at least) badly chosen - there should have been more contrast. The quilter in me also didn't like that the darkest green or blue "flowers" are don't have identical bits as this should be the case in the quilt pattern. The green lower bit is filled in where it shouldn't be and in the blue the bottom right one is one stitch shorter per row. The pattern itself is well made and very clear - I have no complaints about the quality of the printed work, just the floss colour choices and the design of the pattern.

I could have "fixed" all this but I'd already started this and didn't want to have to rip even more out to make it "perfect" so I decided to at least make something out of it so I made another mini pillow.

The green in the border (and backing) was a true find - with the green and blue so close it reads as the colour I chose for the borders, even though the colour isn't anywhere in the embroidery. I made the tassels myself again - this time from the medium green and blue from the leftover thread from the kit. The pillow was again completely hand stitched and if you look carefully - well ok you don't have to look *that* carefully to see them - you can see my tiny stitches near the bottom.

Stats and info
The pattern is: Four Winds (Amish Quilts II Kit) CSK-358 by Cross My Heart
Colours used: 6
Aida: Black 14 count / 6 squares per cm
Stitched area: 2 5/8 inch / 6,5 cm square
Stitches: 4 x 18 stitches square with a lattice of 2 stitches wide left empty between them for a total of 1296 cross stitches.
Pillow: 3 3/4 inch / 9,5 cm square
Tassels: 1 1/4 inch / 3 cm long

I'm happy it's finished and glad I decided to make it into a mini pillow instead as the perfectionist in me was screaming quietly the whole time I was working on this.

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One of my youngest son's teachers got married and he wanted to give her something "mummy made" so I dug around and found a partially made wedding bells and rings card that was embroidered on perforated embroidery paper ( this stuff: [link] )

It was supposed to have a lacy frame but youngest insisted I used E 5200 - a light effects perlescant white which was slow going as it does tend to tangle more than normal thread even when put on the needle the way DMC says and as I couldn't pull it tight it was horribly uneven. After 4 days of hell and only a small amount done (well small for me - I usually work faster) I gave up trying to do that and just cut out the bells and rings bit that I had done. I then glued them to a pale pink card and let youngest write in the card himself.

The pattern and perforated paper comes from DMC collection book number 6 that was printed in 1994.

I'm afraid I forgot to measure the work before I let youngest take it to school but the bells embroidery is about 2 1/2 inches square.

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The 5th UFO that I have done as far as I'm going to. It's the blue butterfly pattern by Thea Gouverneur (pattern #1024) and is supposed to have a stalk and another leaf and a gazillion back stitches but I had reached the point of call it done or throw it away as I have developed a deep lying hate for uneven rough woven linen (and I already hated backstitching anyway) I have discovered by careful comparison of the embroidery I did and the pictures online of the pattern that my colours are also not completely correct and if I had continued they would have continued to happen - some of the mistakes i have won't show now because I didn't do the stalk.

Another thing that disappointed me was that the pattern is hand drawn and the symbols are not always clear and sometimes even completely missing so I had to guess what to put in that empty place - basically I filled it with whatever colour I had on my needle when I noticed it unless it looked out of place to do so.

In the end I just called it quits and stopped - I have a feeling that this will become part of something at a later date - when I get past the hate for the linen

Size of embroidery: 6 x 4 1/2 " / 15,25 x 10,1 cm