Exploring velvet

What shall I do with myself now?

I know!  I have the answer.  I'll take myself off to the Bramble Patch and indulge in a 2 day workshop with Angie Hughes called Exploring Velvet.

I have done workshops with Angie before, and have used velvet before, but not quite in this way.

I started with a piece of vivid pink velvet from Ikea.  I don't even know if they still sell it (this came from my stock and is a couple of years old.  Other colours were available then too, including an 'off white' which I used for indigo dyeing in the C & G course.)

The rest of the class used white velvet.  But not me.  I thought I would try the vivid pink.

First of all we sprayed the velvet with Dy Na Flow from a pump.  I used teal and lemon yellow.  Then the paint was heat set with an iron (and baking partchment to protect it) and then sprayed with quink ink.

The picture above shows the fabric sprayed and ready for the next stage, plus 2 new funky foam printing pads I made for this piece.

Then we used ordinary Domestos household bleach - the gloopy, thick stuff, and began to bleach back the ink.  The quink ink bleaches back really well, but the dy  na flow doesn't so you get a fab effect.  I also discovered that the bleach removed the colour from the velvet (which presents a whole heap of experimental possibilities).

Here I am using a combination of hand made blocks and commercially bought stencils from Angies supplies to bleach back the ink.  The plastic stencils are fabulous and I think it is probably a good idea to start to build a collection.

The green colour is because I used blue and yellow dy na flow and that pink in the middle is from the original velvet colour.

More bleaching, this time with those new blocks that I made for the occassion (plus the Swiss Cheese plant leaves are new too.  Funky foam is so great for blocks)

And here I am beginning to add some paint (acrylics here) - very pale green, white and bronze.

Tomorrow I will add glitter and then stitch!  Very exciting, very satisfying and back in my comfort zone after the challenges of repeat patterns.

Pop back to see the finished piece.