I’m excited to be going to a workshop on heat transfer dying with Angela Ferolla this weekend. Angela teaches at the Fremantle Arts Centre, among other places, and I’ve done other workshops with her before. This one is being run by my neighbourhood group of the Australian Sewing Guild.
In preparation I’ve been trying to come up with some designs to put onto fabric, with the idea of being able to use the fabric for something afterwards. I find often that going to workshops results in a bunch of samples of different techniques, but I tend to bring them home and put them in a drawer, and never end up doing anything with them. I’d really like to be able to come home with a piece of fabric that would be useful, to go into a garment, although to be fair that’s not what the workshop is designed for, it’s supposed to be an opportunity to learn new techniques. However, I think that if I put some thought into it beforehand, I ought to be able to use the new techniques to create a coherent piece which I can then transform into a garment. I’ve sorted out two or three potential bits of fabric from my stash, all a metre or two long, although the requirement list says ‘A3 or bigger’. This in itself was a bit of a challenge, since the dyes only work on synthetic fabrics, and my stash tends strongly towards natural fibres. I had one piece in mind which I was unsure about, but when I did a burn test I’m pretty sure it’s natural, probably rayon, which is no good. I’ve always found the burn test difficult to carry out successfully, I’m not sure why, but there was a definite smell of burning paper, which doesn’t seem like the fabric is synthetic.
I also spent some time playing with some images, although I chose to focus just on shapes rather than colour, because I didn’t have any of the dyes to practice with, and I’m not sure how their colours will relate to watercolours or acrylics, which I do have. I looked out some photos I’d taken at my daughter’s property, and found this shot of old fence wire, which I think has potential.

There was also this, a just-opening agapanthus flower head.

It remains to be seen whether I actually use either of those images, and whether I manage to come home with a usable piece of fabric!
Another shot from the country