Candied FabricsInspiration | Candied Fabrics

Hand Dyed Radiance: A Silky Rainbow of Color

Candy — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:31:07 +0000

Last week, I showed you some results from my first experience dyeing Radiance, a 50/50 cotton/silk blend. I have a client who is making a stole for her pastor, inspired by the stained glass in their church. She wanted deep, glistening colors, similar to the colors in the glass, and a light green background color, so the stole could be used for the “ordinary” season, (a large portion of the liturgical year).

Rather than nothing but screaming bright colors, there are tints of the orange, yellow and blue, a ruddy red to balance the magenta, and some brown as well.

I got some questions in the comments that I’d like to answer! I’m

Alison asked: I hadn’t heard of Radiance (I’m in Australia)… Am I right in thinking that you usually use different types of dye for protein and cellulose fibres? How does that work with them both combined? Also, are you going to use the silky side out, even though it has less visual texture? Would it look or feel much different to cotton if you put the cottony side out? Sorry about all the questions – but it’s so interesting!

I actually dye all my silk scarves just like cotton, with Procion MX Fiber Reactive dyes and soda ash. Silk is this really cool fiber that can be dyed in either basic or acidic conditions. So these are dyed in a single dye bath. But, the reason I did a test first is to see if the silk reacts differently than cotton, which it did, the blue got a little lost. The reason one would use Radiance is for the silky sheen, because at 4 times the cost, one wouldn’t want to use the side that looks like cotton! So because I myself prefer lots of bisual texture, I’ll be experimenting a bit more to see if I can get more texture. But this is the exact visual texture my customer wanted, so tadah!

Man, there is nothing better than a pretty fan of luscious dyed fabrics!

Hand Dyed Radiance: A Silky Rainbow of Color is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

Collecting Color | Toning with Complements

Candy — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:06:21 +0000

Cyn of Riverdog Prints has a meetup called “Collecting Color” that’s all about…you guessed it, color! Last week, I made a set of nesting baskets in some custom colors my client had selected earlier in the summer. When I was working on the pieced strip for the basket, I was worried about the colors. The light lavender and blues kind of had a “baby” feel:

But after seeing that I had plenty of variety in value, I decided to push on.

Once I finished the baskets, I was really happy with the color:
Why? What made the difference?

I think it’s because of the brown undertones in osnaburg that I used as the main fabric. Brown/beige has an orange undertone, and I think this helped tone down blues, because orange is the complement of blue.

I don’t know if that’s the reason…but, I know the osnaburg took these colors from sweet to sophisticated!

Collecting Color | Toning with Complements is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

Inspiration | Fennel Flowers

Candy — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 18:56:51 +0000

I’ve been thinking a lot about my botanical sketches lately, I’d like to add some new flowers to my sketchbook. I was out in the backyard, photographing a couple of scarves, and lo and behold, the fennel flowers in our garden looked incredible. I thought I’d share them with you.

Inspiration | Fennel Flowers is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

Inspiration | Shades of Grey

Candy — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:48:28 +0000

I know I’ve talked before about how inspiring Jan DiCintio is. Her choice of colors is impeccable, and her patterns begin as hand-draw images, which give me that evidence of the hand that I find so important. Her newest organic fabric line is called “Shades of Grey”:

and I just LOVE it! Now – I love lots of commercial fabrics, but I choose not to use them in my work, I somehow feel that the designer’s aesthetic gets muddled up with mine (of course, home decorating is different!)

But…I’m making an exception! Not only because the fabric is so beautiful, but I think it goes extraordinarily well with my Jewel Tone hand dyes.

I had fun playing with these stacks, and really love them with the red:

and plum:

Now, what to make first? Well, I’m getting ready to go on vacation, and although I love my heavy duty messenger bags, I’m in the mood for a lighter bag that’s kinda floppy, big enough for my iPad, wallet and Droid. Maybe expandable? We’ll see…I’m gonna play. I will definitely start with my plum, because it’s what I call “Daisy Janie plum”, its a hue that I dyed after lusting after it in her “Bloom” fabric. It took me like 8 different tries to get it just right!

Inspiration | Shades of Grey is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

Collecting Color – LOTS of Color!

Candy — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 19:07:27 +0000

My twitter pal Cyn of River Dog Prints has a bi-monthly meetup on color. Big surprise, color is something that rocks my world!

I’m slowly recovering from the school year and (hopefully) entering a zone of creativity. What’s been helping me do this is a lot of dyeing for dyeing’s sake, rather than to make something for a show, hurry hurry, get it done! Ironing of all that fabric done, I stopped and photographed, just to glory in the creation of those colors. I thought I’d share them with you, as well as Cyn’s meetup folk. Perhaps you have some color to share too?

I couldn’t choose a favorite photo, so apologies if this took awhile to load. I’m not very good at editting when it comes to pretty pictures of fabric!

Collecting Color – LOTS of Color! is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern