June 22, 2009

Screen Printing with MX Reactive Dyes

I've been screen printing with MX reactive dyes and love the organic look achieved with this technique. I limit myself to a small color palette - black, turquoise, blue, yellow, mixing red and fuschia. I use many screens and cover an entire length of cloth at one time. This pieces measures about 5 feet long.
On this piece, wax was applied to the screen to act as as a resist. I screen print silk, organza and cotton.
I was invited to participate in a fund raiser for The Naples Museum of Art. 42 artists were given small items of furniture to decorate. Being a fiber artist, I thought it appropriate to cover this slick Italian-made leather chair with my dyed pima cotton. After machine stitching the fabric, I designed a slipcover for the seat and had to hand sew the back section to the chair using a circular needle. I found some marvelous flat bottom glass stones in colors matching the fabric and glued these on the chair.
The raffle fund raiser was a huge success. Myra Janco Daniels, CEO of The Phil, selected "my" chair - quite a thrill for me!

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