Using a spinner dryer

Good equipment makes all the difference.

If you dye and hand paint fine fabrics - particularly silks and rayons- you know that washing, drying, and ironing the fabrics during the creative process takes an unbelievable amount of time. Due to my arthritic hand problems I have found myself reluctant to start some projects becasue I couldn't face handling the fabrics through all the washing, rinsing, wringing, towel drying, ironing steps.

I was excited to find a large capacity affordable spin dryer that could take some of the drudgery out of my work for about $150 (delivered).

I received my spin dryer from Laundry Alternative yesterday and I am wildly happy with it. First - time from order to delivery: 7 days UPS ground. Next, I took 3 clean kitchen towels from the drawer, soaked them in 2 cups of water, and put them in the spin dryer dripping wet. The water that came out of the spinner was almost exactly the amount that was used to soak the towels. The really amazing things were the amount of soap bubbles in the water and how the terry towels were nearly dry when they came out of the spinner. Next, I took a load of fresh laundry out of my washer and loaded it into the spinner. Over 2 cups of soapy water was extracted by the spinner. Finally, I took a basket of hand wash items that I have been avoiding for a while. The fabrics included silk (habotai, chiffon, noil, crepe), rayon, beaded cotton, a heavy silk/cotton sweater, and a particularly awful-to-wash cotton gauze batik. I sink washed and rinsed as usual then loaded the like color items in the spinner without any wringing. The results were exceptional. The delicate silks came out ready for a quick press with the iron; the beaded cotton, rayons and the long batik dress dried completely after hanging for 1 hour; and the heavy sweater dried flat in 5 hours.

This spin dryer cut my hand washing time by about 75% and the results on the fine fabrics were equivalent to my previous labor intensive handling.

I have now eliminated wringing with my hands and the awful task of drying delicate fabrics by rolling them into big terry towels. Wringing and toweling is tedious work for anyone, but it’s the absolute worst thing you can do with arthritic hands.

Re cottons: this gadget isn't just for the finer things in life. The full laundry load referred to above was a combo of cottons and some really fine cotton(98%) lycra (2%) designer pants that are my faves. When I put them through the spinner after the washing machine had finished its job I got designer pants that dried on a hanger in an hour (usually takes 5-8 hours) and the no shrink cotton things that I put in my electric dryer (on low temp) were fully dry in 15 minutes.

D is for Dharma Fiber Reactive Cold Batch Dyed Dress

My friend bought a metallic thread pintucked viscose dress on a whim because the fit was flattering on her. Unfortunately, the color was an awful light taupe that would make anyone look like a corpse. It hung unworn in her closet.

I told her I would experiment on it if she would agree that it was OK if it was ruined. I wanted to try a cold batch dye process because it was such a small project that I did not want to waste dye and I wanted to avoid using the 6 cups of salt and tedium that would have been required in a washing machine method.

After machine prewashing in Synthrapol I soda soaked the damp dress for 20 minutes then threw it in my washing machine on spin cycle to remove the excess water. Then I mixed a Tbsp of Truffle Brown Dharma Fiber Reactive dye in 3/4 gallon of urea water. The dye had been pasted and dissolved using ¼ cup of water and 2 Tbsp of casoline oil. I did not bother to strain the dye. I put the dress in a kitty litter pan and poured the dye over it, turning the dress occasionally. The final lazy girl step was squishing the dye through the fabric by hand. I hand pressed out the excess water, left the dress in the pan, put the pan in a garbage bag, and left it to batch in my indoor laundry sink overnight. The next day I did one quick hand rinse and then put the dress in the gentle cycle wash with Synthrapol, followed by a cold water soaking in Milsoft in the machine, then a final cold rinse.

The result surprised me. There must be 200 long pintucks on this dress. There is not a fleck of undissolved dye or a single streak. The dress is color fast and the fabric is nice and soft.

The nagging question now is if I could get such good results if the outcome was important….

F is for Finger pleated Shibori

I decided to try to finger pleat a 40" x 60" piece of soda soaked cotton lycra. This fabric is heavy, and dyes differently than a plain cotton fabric because the surface is a bit like flannel because of the loose cotton thread and the lycra content.

My theory was that the weight of the fabric would enable me to finger pleat this large piece of fabric and that I could loosely secure the pleated bundle with rubber bands spaced 5 or 6 inches apart. That theory proved to be correct to the great joy of my non-functioning fingers.

2 colors (navy and purple) were used with the intent of having a lot of white areas. I decided during dyeing to use a highly dilute navy also. The dye was applied with squirt bottles.

I kind of like it even though it got a little muddy with the purple in areas. Let's hope I can make something out of this that doesn't look too ridiculous.

C is for Color Hue resisted with Galactic Glitter Glue

I receive Dyeing 101 emails and have been intrigued with using Elmer's Galactic Glue as a resist. The Dyeing 101 info showed using the glue as a total resist on soda soaked cotton that was dyedw/ procion dyes after the glue dried. I tried something different. I dyed a silk habotai scarf a yellowish green with ColorHue. That took 2 minutes. I ironed the scarf dry and attached it to a vinyl coveredprint board. Next, I squirted the glue in 6 or 8 inch lengths and spread it on the silk with a foam brush. I tried to cover the fabric completely, but I knew the glue was slightly thicker in some areas. It took about 4 hours for the glue to dry. Once it was dryI removed it from the board and scrunched the fabric in my hands. Then I pinned it on a clean vinyl covered print board and painted the entire glued surface with alginate thickened black acid dye.

When the dye solution was dry I steam set the scarf. Rinsing out all the glue was achieved by simmering the scarf in Synthrapol and water on the stove for about 20 minutes. I am anxious to find out if it was the alginate thickened dye that allowed the black to penetrate the glue in a way that created shading, or if itwas a result of the steaming. Maybe it was a combination of the two. More to learn!

C is for Machine stitched Color Hue shibori

Inspired by the work and words of some other Surfacing members, I decided to try some machine stitched shibori with Color Hue dyes. Color Hue is an instant strike colorant that requires no setting, so it seemed to be a good choice to play with as I tried machine stitching.

My first experiment was on a 10x17" scrap of habotai. I used my serger, knife up, and made simple lines of ruffled stitching using the differential feed set at 2. As I progressed down the fabric I tried catching multiple layers of previously ruffled areas. Finally, I rolled the fabric into a tube and tied it with some monofiliment line that was handy. I wet the fabric and applied some undiluted ColorHue. The result was disappointing, and the serged stitches were a pain to disassemble.

The second experiment was on the sewing machine. As suggested by Thelma, I loosened the tension and made straight stitches. I used a scarf and sewed multiple wide darts down the length of a 14x60" habotai scarf. The darts were then defined by 2 more lines of stitching. Pulling the bobbin threads was easy. I dip dyed the scarf in yellow and blue. Multiple dips were made on the blue areas. Then I removed the stitches. After photographing the predominantly yellow scarf I decided to overdye the piece in blue to colorize the white areas. The final scarf is predominately green and the stitched resist areas are a very pale blue. I mourned the loss of contrast, but believe the final scarf is still worthy of gifting.

If I repeat this process I will use the same dart stitch design, and use less dilute Color Hue for all parts of the dyeing process so the final product has more contrast. That way the stitched lines would be more obvious.

B is for Bones, a self portrait

This is my second submission in the Surfacing group's 2009 alphabet project. It is my first attempt at a non-fashion project and is called a self portrait because it shows the current state of my arthritic hand bones.

The fabric is habotai that was first dyed with a super thick alginate paste colored with Crimson green label liquid dye. I salted the surface just to see if any salt effect would happen in the midst of the thick alginate. To my surprise the color separated and the surface became a mottled red/orange/yellow. I thought it properly represented inflamation.

The bones were drawn on freezer paper. Mind you, the shape of each bone was deliberate as I tried to capture the radiographic image of the deformities in each bone. I arranged the bones with a little artistic license on the habotai and hit them with the iron.

Next, I covered the hands in used dryer sheets hoping to get a little texture in the next dye. My print paste was on the thin side so I think I lost some of the texture that might have been interesting and made the finished product less realistic. The black dye was screened on and a heat lamp was used to speed the drying. The underlying fabric had been dyed and steam set a few weeks ago. I used a chemical set on the black because I was in a hurry.

The pieces were washed with synthrapol once. I decided to leave some residue of the alginate so I could keep some extra body in that part of the piece and add some sheen. Once ironed the pieces felt a bit like light paper because of the alginate residue.

There is something ugly and scary about these images, but I enjoyed making them. I may permanently mount them on the black habotai backdrop, or they may just reside in my studio. Either way, it was cathartic to do this project. Remember your hands, take care of them, treat them gently as you age.

Girl friends, grits, gifts and the aging goddess

This is to those of you who have jumped, limped, or been carried over the age 50 hurdle . Have you grieved the loss of your goddess self image? You know, that prideful inner creature that admired her image in the mirror from the first bloom of beauty. She may have had many imperfections, but she was your best. You could dress her up and turn a few heads. She surely relied on her looks a little too much at times.

My dear friend stopped by the other day. The old goddess had a headache and could not face the day so I fed us some scrambled eggs with cheese and grits for lunch and gifted her a dress that I had just made for myself. We laughed about the grits - they are so chic now - once a simple mainstay of my southern breakfasts, now called by a variety of names on menus on 4 star menus from Philadelphia to San Francisco. My friend was raised on Matzo and is a compulsive dieter. She feared the grits as I spooned them on her plate. It was her old goddess self image trying to deny her. Yet, she ate them and felt better.

That is what happens when the aging goddess lets go and allows herself to not fear the extra pound on her bottom. It's not about the grits, my dear. It is all about feeling good now and being liberated from the compulsions that little goddesses hold to keep themselves thin. Perfection for the aging goddess is just feeling good. Isn't that grand? If I had known, I would have grown older sooner.