Customer Reviews

Transforming Fabric: Color on Fabric and Life

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Carolyn Dahl's "Transforming Fabric" is a clearly superior reference volume, and one which reflects the author's dedication to artistry in every aspect of its pages. Most fundamentally, "Transforming Fabric" is itself a work of art, which even a fabric-neophyte will enjoy browsing through to gaze at the richly colorful photographs and illustrations. For anyone interested in the fabric arts, this book is a must-buy!

After reading many books on silk painting, I came upon 'Tranforming Fabric' and knew immediately this was the book I had been searching for. In fact, I had to call the author and express my appreciation for her writing style and the techniques she offers to transform fabrics. Looking at fabric took on a new meaning for me - I was eager to start the process of transforming fabric. The results have been more pleasing than I had expected. I recommend this book to anyone that enjoys working with fabric - sewers, quilters etc. The author's experiences add to the pleasure of taking a piece of fabric and adding your personal touch without being an artist. To the author - thanks and I'm waiting for # 2! To the publisher - thank you - find more authors like Carolyn.

This is the most complete guide I have found on coloring & decorating all types of fabric. It is in full-color & packed with many detailed examples. The book starts out with a general history & information on fabrics.

Step-by-step instructions then take you though a wide variety of techniques, including painting, dyeing, printing and stamping. Choice of fabric, preparation and colorant recipes precede the various techniques.

There are lots of fresh ideas that I have not seen in other books like coloring a black & white pattern and etching fabric. Many others include compression dyeing, heat transfer, wax patterning, silk painting & nature printing.

I found the work in this book to be very creative and a great source of ideas and inspiration. I especially enjoyed those that use patterns from nature. The extensive resource list is a great bonus.

As someone who designs her won clothes and loves making a variety of textile art I love this book as well as Textile Dyeing: The Step-By-Step Guide. Simply because each book shows that one need not rely on plain fabric, but with some simple know how you can transform the simplest piece of cloth into a work of art. I especially like taking rubber stamps and with a simple clothes iron, and some velvet, making beautiful material rich with images of nature.

I will never look at a piece of fabric in the same way after reading Carolyn Dahl's beautifully written and generously illustrated book on fabric design. The subtitle, 'Color on Fabric and Life' hints that there is much more here than the how-to of dyeing, painting and patterning fabrics. Fabric artists aren't the only ones who will be entertained and inspired as Dahl awakens memories of childhood coloring books, leaf prints, iron-on designs and the tie-dyed T-shirts most of us experienced at sometime in our lives. Connoisseurs of the decorative arts and those who are merely curious about the fabrics they wear and use in everyday life will find much to interest them. Early textile dyers, Dahl tells us, signed oaths that they would not reveal any of the process. Fortunately, Dahl openly shares the secrets she has gleaned in arts schools from New York to Florence, Italy, and in her own studios from Berkeley to Houston. She hands out easy to follow directions on techniques that range from simple sponge printing to the very exacting wax resist process of batiking. For the serious fabric artist, her book is the next best thing to having a master artist and craftsman with them in the studio as she chats and reminisces while sharing the things she has learned in easy to follow, step-by-step instructions. For example, in a chapter on Compression Dyeing, Dahl compares the pulling and tugging of the fabric to the way "great handfuls of hair disappeared into skinny little whips" when her mother braided her hair. Such fresh imagery and lyrical expression set a new standard for "how-to" books. "Wherever you go...you are part of someone's visual landscaping...Why not make it beautiful," Dahl quotes from one of her lectures. With her book in hand, it is hard to resist such a challenge.