and now, for something completely different.

My very talented friend Debra makes her own hand-dyed and hand-painted fabric, which she then sells to quilters and those Very Patient people who like to applique. A couple of days ago, she invited me to her studio to join in on the fun, and I managed to snap a few photos in between steps (when my rubber gloves were clean enough to pick up my phone). Had I not been participating in the process, I would have taken more pictures... but there are still enough to get a general idea of what went down in the studio! Just FYI, this is not one of my usual 'how-to' posts... this is more of a recap. I can't guarantee all of the steps are documented here (or in any kind of logical order, for that matter)! 

The first fat quarter of fabric: 

The first few splashes of dye on presoaked fabric, which started out as a pristine white.

After Debra soaked the fabric in a bucket of dye, I got to add a little 'character' to it. With blue. 

Unscrunching and rescrunching (to expose different parts of its surface) to add a different blue....

... and again.

(If there's anything better than blue, it's more blue.)

look at all those beautiful, smurfy shades.

 Just wanted to point out the pretty patterning in this glass on the way to the rinse sink. 

The rinse sink... where the water never really runs clear.

A few sloshes to make the dye permanent...

 ...and then we let the color set for a while in the toasty Texas sunshine.

Smoothie, anyone? 

Just kidding. That's dye too.

wet fabric: it will look much different when it's dry.

More wet fabric. 

Wet on the left, ironed/dry on the right. 

See that pretty sunburst effect happening down at the bottom? 

No idea how that happened. But Debra knows, and that's what matters.

She gave me some to take home and play with...

 So of course I drew all over it. :o)

That's an Identi-pen, in case you were wondering.

You can see some of Debra's art (she paints on canvas, too) here on her website.

Fabric junkies: If you're on facebook, she's got a whole album of fabric photos here... and if you only click on one link in this whole blog post, make this the one, because it's definitely worth a look. 

• ❃ • ❋ • ❁ • ✿ • ✽ • ❀ •

Thanks for stopping by! 

Feel free to join me here, 

where I frequently share artsy things that inspire me, 

invite tanglers to share art,

crack silly jokes, 

and offer up the 

occasional 

tangle 

prompt. 

:oD

❀