new fabric beginnings

Here are the results from yesterday's dying and screen printing adventures.

One thing i learned is that dye loses it's punch after a week or so of being mixed.

These were so dark when i printed them, and I left them to batch 36 hrs thinking it might not strike as well, but much of the color washed out anyway.

My goal was to get a light, medium, and a dark printing of the same screen on each piece of fabric. I accomplished that but in much lighter tones that originally intended.

I am glad they washed out a bit because that means I can go back and add one or two more darker layers. Sometimes mistakes turn out to actually be blessings in disguise.

These last two are the front and back of the printed fabric. I used an older piece of store bought fabric with a blue marble design already printed on one side. It sort of shows through on the front. It just adds more texture and that faint idea that there is a different color trying to peak through.

The brown/gold twirls are printed on a fabric that has gold sea shells already printed on it too,

but they match the color of the dye so closely they don't show up as well. So all these pieces are back in the soda ash bucket soaking. They will hand to dry overnight so i can screen print on them again tomorrow.