Colorquilts | Fabrics

I felt like I finally hit my stride when I realized stamped images would go on faster and more spontaneously if I wrapped the stamp around a cylinder and rolled the dye onto the cloth! I've experimented with many different sorts of rollers, but I have two favorites. One is made by taking a Plexiglas cylinder and affixing weatherstripping (it comes with the adhesive already on it!); the first couple pictures feature this type of roller. The other is simpler; I get a foam roller (the Whizz brand seems to work particularly well), and wrap dental floss around it in a spiral pattern. The resulting roller makes a beautiful striped cloth, as seen in the bottom pictures.

On the right is a closeup of the kinds of patterns the "vee" roller makes.

To the right is an image of a fabric made entirely with the prepared foam roller, grading the colors as I progressed along the length of the piece. I'm showing you an extreme detail, which gives you some idea of how many different feelings are achieved with varying pressures and amounts of dye on the roller.

The fabric on the left actually uses both rollers mentioned above. The background colors were applied with the prepared foam roller, and then I used the plexi cylinder to add on the purple vee shapes.

On the left is a piece that uses the foam roller with blues and greens on top of a monoprint done in a goldish-green. I love the interaction of the two layers!