Shiboris, parfaits, experiments and ironing boards

The last few days I have been working on a few swaps. The first picture is of some shibori pieces ready for dye and the second one is after they are dyed. Here is what I did:
I used leftover dye that had been sitting on the counter for these pieces so the colors are not as true as they would have been if they were fresh. The colors used were all Dharma - Rose Red, Golden Yellow, Peacock Blue, Turquoise and ProChem Mixing Blue. All except the Turquoise were mixed at ½ value with 2T urea added per cup of water and 2 tsp SA added prior to applying to dry fabric.
#1 Stitched and rocks bound with upholstery thread
#2 Didn't resist at all (this is the one with the pink string wrapped around it)
#3 Folded and bound with binder clips
#4 Yellow applied and pressed to work thru fabric then turquoise applied
#5 Yellow applied and pressed to work thru fabric then red mixed with shaving cream and applied
#6 Blue and red mixed to make purple, then rinsed because it was VERY dark, applied red shaving cream mixture
ALL were left to batch 24 hours









I used leftover dye that had been sitting on the counter for these
pieces so the colors are not as true as they would have been if they
were fresh. The colors used were all Dharma - Rose Red, Golden
Yellow, Peacock Blue, Turquoise and ProChem Mixing Blue. All except
the Turquoise were mixed at ½ value with 2T urea added per cup of
water and 2 tsp SA added prior to applying to dry fabric.
ALL were left to batch 24 hours









I have been using urea since I started dyeing 3 years ago. It is
pretty expensive to ship it so thought I would try it without to see
what would happen. Well, I think the results are very similiar and
that I might even like the without results better. The top row has
urea and the bottom row does not. The colors are Dharma turquoise
and golden yellow and the green is 50/50 turq and golden yellow.
What do you think?









I was reading Kate's blog http://katesquilting.blogspot.com/ this afternoon and she showed her ironing board linking back to Libby's blog http://simplylibby.blogspot.com/ so I am following suite. In honor of Leap Year and Sadie Hawkins Day she is doing a little drawing if you post a picture of your ironing board and put a note on her blog. I will do the same thing if you put a note on my blog. So, put a comment on today's post that you have posted a picture of your ironing board on your blog and I will enter you in a drawing for something special too. My first photo shows the family ironing board, the only one we had until I made one for my sewing area a few weeks ago, and it is the second picture. As you can see, the first one is kinda yucky, mostly from spray starch that I use when pressing my gorgeous hand-dyed fabrics. The new one hasn't gotten broken in enough yet!! so it is nice and clean still. It is also 6'x30" and wonderful. I had a piece of plywood cut at Lowe's, covered it with cotton batting and then the teflon stuff you make ironing board covers with and used DHs staple gun. It is great for ironing clothes, yards of fabric and right next to the machine for pressing as I sew. As you can see there is some dyed fabric waiting to be pressed on the far end and some fabrics waiting to be made into something on the end near the iron.



Well, guess I'll go for now, thanks for stopping by.