Transfer Dyes

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Transfer or Disperse Dyes.

I love some of the work other people produce with Transfer Dyes (Angie Hughes, or the ladies doing fabulous things at Morley College) but I don't love what I have done in the past.

Part of it may be the frustration of using the domestic iron (the heat press at Morley sounds fantastic - I am green with envy).

But Transfer Dyes (or to be more accurate, Transfer Printing) is on the agenda with the City and Guilds course so last week saw me re-kindling my relationship with Transfer Printing.

Actually, the experience was not so bad, though I cannot imagine how I can use this technique to produce a consistent piece of 1m of fabric.

Because I have used this technique before I tried something a bit different.  I crunched the paper before painting it.  I used Leaf Green and Wine Red (shown below).

Then I cut the papers into strips and 'wove' them.

Then I wrestled with the domestic iron!  Actually the results, though not consistent, are not so bad (that is the printed fabric on the right hand side).  I used a teflon sheet under the paper when I ironed it and protected the iron with parchment paper.  But as you can see, although I was convinced that I had used constant pressure, the is a gradient of effect on the fabric.

Meanwhile others in the group were experimenting with some different techniques.  I will be interested to see how this comes out - applying the transfer dyes to the paper with a dry brush.