“Morning has spoken…”
It’s 6:00am, and the birds outside are singing in a new day. Clouds from the drizzly day of yesterday are clearing, allowing slivers of the sun to peek through. Although Aussie seasons are mild here on the east coast, it’s still cool in the morning The chilly winds, they never stop me from dreaming of ice – lots of it – not snow, as it doesn’t snow this close to the coastline, but ICE! Big chunks like you’d float in a glass in the heat of summer.
Most of my life I have dabbled in art, having received my very first set of oil paints from my grandparents as a very young girl. I love nature, and in another life, am a fully qualified florist. I have a natural ability to ‘wing it’ and come out with great ideas and compositions. So when I look at nature, I see that there are no two colours the same. Mother Nature, with all her fury, also gently surprises us at every turn with colour combinations fit to burst the soul with delight and the heart with joy! With gay abandon she paints the air, the sea, and the lands with all the spectrum of light refracted and then blows us away with hues, tints, tones, shapes and textures. From a subtle leaf blowing in the breeze, jittering at the end of a knobby branch, to the delicate capillaries within the petals of your favourite flowers. Nature really is a miraculous source of inspiration.
Disclosure, I am relatively new to the quilting world, but my Mother and my dear friend Julie introduced me to this craft, and have encouraged me to expand my creativity and get on board. Knowing the amount of fabric I have collected over the years, I seem to have accepted the challenge of ‘Those with the most fabrics upon death, wins!’ I’m trying.. really I am! But I’ve always been horrified at the idea of cutting into beautiful fabric for making quilts, and yet, never had the same aversion when I made clothes from equally lovely fabric for my children and myself, and now, my granddaughter.
So, as I stumbled through the idea of paying large sums for a small piece of fabric, I have discovered that ice and dyes are another art form that allows me to create. It keeps my artistic side happy, and allows fellow quilters access to unique, one of a kind pieces that they can cut up… and I won’t have to apply scissors to beauty (*editor: yes she will, I’m going to challenge her with a purchased panel and her one-of-a-kind fabrics)!
Ice atop a piece of damp fabric, and delicately sprinkled with dyes, makes for a wonderfully serendipitous outcome but it can also go horribly wrong when colours you hope will look sensational together, in fact, split into their base compositions, mingle together and look downright awful. But, these fabrics also have a place, and nothing really is bin-worthy. It just requires a fresh set of eyes and an art quilt instead!
Some of the fabric pieces I have created have been just for fun and experimentation, and others have been a deliberate manipulation of colours, blending and fracturing the pigments using the ice dye method. I have seen first hand that dyeing with snow and larger chunks of ice, makes no real noticeable difference in the end product. What Variations occur, comes down to type of fabrics, and the actual dyes themselves. But either way, I’m in love with the journey my Mum and beloved friend Julie, have led me down. I like this garden path, and I think I would like to stay here on it, treading softly over the cracks of chartreuse weeds poking up in between, and the edges of sweet peas, daffodils, and bluebells.. and of sweet William of my grandmothers day. Dyeing of fabrics lends to wonderful shapes, textures, and hues, tints and tones! All the things Mother Nature is showing us, every day. And if the result isn’t what I like.. I can over dye, or paint, or apply textures, or cut it into shapes for a part of an art quilt. So.. dyeing is not final.. it’s just the very beginning!
~ Rails
* (editor of this piece is Julie)
