Another Day of Marbling

Here are some more marbling pictures. These are ones that I've marbled a second time. I really need to figure out how I'm going to use these. They are so different from what I usually use that it has got me a little bit stuck but they are so fun to make that I keep making more and keep asking what if I try this?? I have more fabric drying to marble later today. I pulled some more commercial fabrics to try and some of my painted hand painted ones.

I was looking at this one oriented vertically and thought it looked like a backbone, my friend, Debbie said a snakeskin.

These are all about 10"x13". The size of a large turkey roasting pan. I'd love to find or make something that is bigger so I can try marbling some bigger pieces.

Marbling - Day 4

Here are pictures of the marbling I did yesterday. It's interesting how the same color looks different when on a different background color. This first one was done on a piece of green silk. The one with a gray background fabric is also a silk.

These next two were made by splattering the paint on to the methyl cel. The first one was a commercial fabric. I like the way the changes in the background fabric show through the marbling. 

This one was done on a hand-dyed background.

I used the circle stencil for this one. Just wanted to see what it would look like without any other marbling underneath.

Marbling - Day 3

Here are the marbling results from yesterday. The first two pieces have a second layer of marbling added to them.

This one, I just used black and white paint.

This one had a second layer added to it. You can see the smaller circles in a grid. This was done by floating a foam stencil on top of the methyl cel and using it to keep the paint contained.

This is marbling on organza. Should have layed it on a piece of black fabric so it would show up better.

I did some more marbling tonight after I go home from work. This is really addictive!!! I tried marbling on some commercial fabrics and a couple pieces of silk. They are down on the floor of the basement drying. Not sure what I will make with these. Did I say this was addictive?? Really, really addictive???

Marbling - Day 2

Here's day 2 of marbling. I added more alum to the water I soak the fabric in. I followed Pro Chem's directions and it seems to have worked better. I also used colored fabric instead of white. I think that made a difference in how they look. A couple of them were hand-dyed fabric and you can see the mottling coming through the paint.  The 3 in the first photo, I have close-ups of. The 3 in the second photo I have all set to add a second layer of marbling. Jo Fitsell said she doesn't soak the fabric in alum for the second layer, but I have so much background fabric showing that I decided to soak them in alum just to be safe. I'll probably end up putting a second layer on the first 3 too.

It's interesting how different the paints look on different background fabrics. All of these were marbled with the same paint colors. Well, at least with having Gary down in Boston for another 5 weeks, I don't have to worry about how big a mess I make in the basement experimenting!!! Well, I'm off to the basement to have some more fun!

It Worked!!!!

For Christmas, Gary gave me Quilting Arts TV Series 1000. I was really fascinated with the marbling that Jo Fitsell showed. I ended up downloading her Marbled Fabric Surface Design workshop from Quilting Arts and decided I wanted to try it. When I went online to buy carrageenan and  alum, Pro Chemical and Dye didn't carry carrageenan but had methyl cel. Went ahead and ordered that. While I was waiting for it to come, I researched other peoples experience with methyl cel and started to get worried. A lot said it was harder to use than carrageenan and they had trouble getting the paint to float. Forged ahead anyways, mixed up the metyl cel, soaked fabric in alum water, and watered down some Golden Fluid Acrylics. And..... it worked!!!! 

There I am, down in the basement, yelling, "It worked!!! It worked!!! This is so cool!!!!" My kids come running downstairs to see what all the excitement is about. When they see it is paint floating on what looks like water, they give me "the look", roll their eyes and head back upstairs.

Here are the pictures.

I think I didn't have enough alum in the water that the fabric soaked in. The alum is used to make the paint adhere to the fabric better. My colors washed out a little. For my first attempt at marbling, I'm happy. I'll need to experiment a little more. I need to work on my color combinations. My favorite is the black and white one. I also want to try marbling onto colored fabric I did mine on white fabric.

Happy New Year

I hope every had a merry Christmas and a safe and fun New Years! Ours was quiet and and spent with our family. Working  at a grocery, we worked a lot of it. I haven't had a lot of time to do much and what I did do was for presents, so couldn't show them. Kara's old tie dyed pillowcase finally gave out so I made her a couple of new ones. I dyed them using the ice dyeing method.  Both of these were dyed in the same container but came out completely different.

This first one, I separated the 2 sides of the pillowcase and scrunched them differently. You can see that each side came out different. This was also the top layer in the container.

The second pillowcase, I kept the two sides together and did a rough spiral. you can see that both sides came out pretty much the same. this was on the bottom of the container.