Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Stripety stripes

Here are the thrift store shirt pieces all washed and ready for my stash. This basket includes my striped shirt and one of Ray's that has an ink stain on the pocket and I did not have the heart to throw away. Now I know why. Lotta nice fabric here, and yes, some are not stripes, but plaids, which qualify in my mind as "stripe-ish."  Stripes going in two directions. It was a limited palette. I decided some pieces needed to be over-dyed to round out the selection.

Here are a few of the over-dyes added in.

Isn't that yellow pretty? It used to be the pale peachy piece in the upper right corner of the basket above. The pinkish piece went into the same yellow dye bath and came out the nice clear orange. Over-dying is magical. You can see a tiny corner of a purple stripe, that was originally a gray stripe. It is my favorite transformation.

All the buttons harvested from those shirts.

I ironed and folded every piece and then added them to my tub of woven plaids and stripes. I have been saving those for years. I now have a nice stash of stripey stuff to work with. I may need to do a little more over-dying. I see I lack enough deep darks.


I appreciate all the comments and suggestions. You have convinced me to take a small break. I need to clean the studio for the Open Studios in a couple of weeks. I need to work on the painted canvas challenge for the STASH group.  I need to pack up the Twelve by Twelve theme quilts and send to their owners.  I need to draw. So I will let the stripey fabric simmer and age a bit. I will dream about it and take it off the shelf often to admire it, then when I am ready I will start cutting into it. Or I will have gotten a different idea!

3 comments:

  1. The colors of those overdyed fabrics are wonderful. I was not going to give you any advice on your previous post, but I looked at the pile of shirts and thought you could use some red and lime green!!

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  2. I think that you have worked out an EXDELLENT plan. Concentrating on the other endeavors will allow your mind to work freely, to wander about and pick up new ideas,to see new relationships,etc..good for you.

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  3. Except for overdyeing, if we relied on men's shirts, they would all be blue, dark blue, or blue and white stripe. At least at my house.

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