August 5, 2013

Organizing the wet studio



The wet studio (for dyeing/painting/printing fabric) is definitely not as pleasant an environment as the sewing studio upstairs.  Nonetheless, I'm lucky to have a basement with plenty of space, a concrete floor, convenient electricity, and a large, deep double sink.  This is the main table I work on, here covered with an array of stuff I've been accumulating since starting to take classes on screen printing, stamping, discharge, etc.  Working further with the new techniques was being hampered by the difficulty of finding what I needed, so it was time to get organized.  I laid it all out on the table, and then organized things in plastic or cardboard containers.  Multi-use tools that could be used for more than one technique (like cotton twine and sponges) got their own box.  Here are a couple of the newly organized shelves:


And on another shelf, I have most of what I need for regular dyeing and painting.


The plastic shelving is from Walmart--much easier to put together than the metal shelving I've used for decades, and it won't rust.

I've got a new project in mind that will involve both printing and discharge, so this was a necessary first step.  I've got a week or two of work to do on "Regret" to get it ready for quilting.  Once that is all prepared, I'll move on to the next project.  The deadline is related to the weather--discharge needs to be done when it's warm enough to work outside. . .

1 comment:

  1. Penny, thanks for posting this - it's given me some ideas of how to be better organized. Just putting all those plastic bottles into a big container is a help - mine are always tumbling out of a cabinet. I use boxes for various size clamps and clamping shapes too. Dyes are in a cabinet away from any light. We sure accumulate a lot, don't we?

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