In our latest round of Ladies Art, Ms T and I played
with a new dyeing method.
This version of fabric decoration uses a seaweed based
gelatin to thicken the dye (the same fiber reactive
dye I use in batiking) to a paint like thickness.
The idea is that then the dye can be directly applied to
the fabric by brush, stamp, or sponge, just as you would
fabric paint, but the finished fabric will not have the
heaviness or stiffness paint creates.
It's an interesting process, and one I need to play with
more. The first round of dye wasn't thick enough,
and next time I'd add more dye. There is also a time
element to this process. The dye becomes impotent
after a couple of hours, so you need to act quickly.
After the business of Christmas is past, I want to try
working with this method again.