Explorations in Thickened Dye with Carol Soderlund

I spent two weeks in June at the Crow Timber Frame Barn in Baltimore, Ohio, taking two classes from the queen of fabric dyeing, Carol Soderlund.  It was a wonderful two weeks!

The Barn is a wonderful place to visit.  It is serene, secluded and beautiful.  In June, the grounds are lush and green and a walk around the property is a great way to find some visual inspiration.

I've been coming to the Barn for ten years, both for classes from the wonderful Nancy Crow and for dyeing and composition classes from Jan Myers-Newbury, David Hornung, Terry Jarrard-Dimond and, of course, Carol Soderlund.  In fact, my first class at the Barn was "Color Mixing for Dyers" in 2009.

Thickened dye is a lot of fun to work with.  We spent our time painting, stamping, stenciling, silk screening, and discharging dye.  It was delightfully messy!  Although I spent the week fully gloved, I managed to get quite a bit of dye on me.  Pretty much everywhere.

Carol instructed us to create a unique palette of colors.  We worked from those colors for most of the week.

My palette ranged from yellow-orange to blue-green.  Lots of olive and brownish tones:

 But I veered into fuchsia and red.  I can't stay away from those hot colors for too long!

We layered textures and colors on each piece:

At the end of the week, the room was filled with beautiful fabric:

 These are my pieces from the week.  I worked mostly with quarter and half yard pieces:

 And my favorite piece from week one:

After a weekend with my brother (he and his family live in Worthington, on the north side of Columbus), I came back to the Barn for another week of dyeing fun.  More on that later!