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Wednesday, August 06, 2008

For Val

After a comment I made recently, Val asked me how I had used instant mash potato as a resist after giving her a brief run down, in an e-mail I finally found my pictures and decided to share them here as well.
I only had one picture of the original fabric, and it has now been made up into a bag, so the smaller pictures are scans of portions of the bag.

I dyed an old cotton sheet orange in the washing machine with Dylon Machine dye,then over dyed it with Maroon Dylon Machine dye, this resulted in a warm brown shade.

I then laid out half a metre of the fabric on my work table,
I mixed up the instant mash potato, sorry don't remember what brand, to a smooth paste thick enough to hold itself when spread, but not too thick to spread easily.

Starting at the top, I lay stencils and smoothed the paste over the stencil, then carefully peeled it away.
I also spread the paste over the cloth and pressed stamps into the surface to reveal the fabric
The picture below shows
An Indian wooden block stamp
A commercial stencil
A cork pressed into the fabric



The next picture shows
a hand made polystyrene spiral stamp,
a hand made stencil



Another hand made stamp



For this section below I used torn newspaper strips to create a wavy edge, and in the area next to it, I used sequin waste and smoothed the paste through, I then peeled the sequin waste away and also the newspaper strips to reveal the fabric underneath.



once I had covered the length of the fabric, I let it set for a while, and then using a cheap thin bleach, I sprayed it over the whole piece,
I let this dry thouroughly and then washed out the whole thing.

I added a touch of turquoise acrylic paint and made a huge bag for carrying all my supplies to workshops. my friend Jenny said I looked like a paper boy, cheeky madam
as I don't go to many workshops these days, a few weeks ago I decided to revamp the bag into a smaller tote bag, great for days out.

11 comments:

Gill said...

Carol, thank you for reminding me of this technique. Was only thinking about it when I was at the workshop in Cirencester last Saturday - I remembered how we used flour and water paste resist years ago, but mashed potato is so much easier!

I love the red of your fabric. Gorgeous colour.

And clearly your friend went to the same Tact school as mine did!

sharon young said...

What a fantastic technique, Carol, I've never heard of it before but shall definitely give it a go when i get the time :-)
I love the addition of the turquoise, it just sets of that glorious brown.

Helen said...

lovely fabric Carol. The mashed potato bit made me giggle... I love unexpected uses for things like that :D

Val said...

Fantastic Carol - thanks so much for that. I'll definitely have a go - the pix are very inspiring and it all sounds so simple!! Val

hippopip said...

What a great idea and to such a good effect,another W/E sorted

Unknown said...

This looks great Carol, I almost forgot about this technique. Long ago I bought the supplies but never used it. I must try it now the weather is good and I can work outside. Thanks for sharing!

maggik1 said...

Hey, what a fun idea - can't wait to try it. Will get some 'mash' when I shop tomorrow. Thanks for the idea, Carol. I've just found your blog and I love it.

Micki said...

Neat technique and fantastic outcome. Love the fabric and colors.

Debbi Baker said...

How incredible!!Love the results. Another technique to add to the "must try" list!

jackie said...

Now I've heard everything!! Good results and good for a laugh as well.

Anonymous said...

These are awesome results, Carol - I must give it a try sometime!

Sorry I missed you while we were in North Wales - we did go to Conwy and Llandudno on one day but it was a last minute decision based on the weather forecast so I had no time to try and organise anything! I did text Mags while we were in Conwy but she didn't get it till the next day!