Tag Archives: dye

A pretty colorful weekend at Lyn Belisle Studio

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32The Studio was awash in dye this weekend, first with Rosemary Uchniat’s fantastic half-day Small Space Dyeing workshop on Saturday, and then my Goddess Banner workshop on Sunday afternoon. Everyone was caught red-handed having fun – and blue-handed, and green-handed . . .take a look at the video!

Both classes will be repeated in case you want to join in. Rosemary’s second Small-Space Dyeing class is October 17th from 1-5. The first one sold out instantly. And my next Goddess Banner workshop is coming right up on Sunday, August 16th from 2-5.

banNow about those Goddess Banners, this was a special small class that was scheduled for a guest from Houston who wanted to take both Rosemary’s class and mine the same weekend. There were four of us, and it was great to be able to work alongside the participants. I had a blast! We transferred images, dyed cheesecloth, created symbols and words of inspiration, and put it all together in the most remarkable way! I just love this project – and it’s three hours, start to finish.

One of my favorite fiber artists, Linda Rael, was in our group – that made it even more fun. She has a great idea for a series of banners, but I’ll let her tell you about it if she actually does it. Hope so! Take a look at the video, and then consider signing up for the workshop on August 16th – you won’t regret it! It’s to dye for. Sorry.

Cheesecloth – to dye for

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cheesecloth1I love this stuff! I hand-dyed a bunch of it for Sunday’s Spirit Doll workshop and made some cool discoveries. One – it’s cheap – and available in a ton of places, like hardware stores in the paint department and supermarkets in the kitchen gadgets department for about $1.00 a yard or less.

Two – you can dye it super-fast with Rit dye, procion dyes, or just plain old diluted acrylic paint – and it stretches and tears and look very artistic either as a collage addition or as Spirit Doll swooshy capes and wraps.

Here’s some of the dyed cheesecloth that I put together with other supplies for the Spirit Doll workshop – earthy and rich:

cheesecloth

And here’s a bunch of it drying on the bench outside the Studio – kinda like exotic rags;

cheeseclothbench

If you want to dye it yourself, this is a fast and easy way – put a squirt of fluid acrylic paint and about 1/2 cup of water in a little plastic container, add the cheesecloth and squish it down and saturate it, let it sit for about ten minutes, then squeeze it out, and dry it by spreading it out or putting it in the dryer for a few minutes (if you put it in the dryer, it will crinkle up, which you might like)

Note: I tried a gold metallic acrylic, but it didn’t retain the metallic look – I added a little orange and a little walnut ink (of course) and got a nice mottled peach color. It’s impossible to mess up – any color seems to work.

This was one of my favorite Spirit Dolls from the workshop – Pat Konstam used a rock that she had found in Israel for the face (it looks as if it’s smiling) – and she used red and brown cheesecloth for her Red Sea Spirit Doll:

cheeseclothpat

Spirit of the Red Sea – Pat Konstam

And finally, check out the video from the workshop – I hope you enjoy seeing it, and I hope you’ll go play with cheesecloth!

PS –  As I was doing a little research on dyed cheesecloth, I discovered that it’s the newest thing to wrap a newborn baby in – who knew?? Ain’t been no newborn babies in my neck of the woods for a loooong time!

cheesecloth