By CRISTY SHAUCK
Pestered by a telemarketer droning on about services, Ann Mueller interrupts, "I have to hang up now. I'm in the middle of dyeing and timing is very important!"
Mueller, a surface designer, was dyeing a piece of fabric a specific shade of blue and needed to remove it from her washing machine. She laughs and adds, "I pictured this lady with a horrified expression on her face, and I waited for an emergency vehicle to pull up in front of my house."
Mueller began working with fabrics at a young age. When she was 5 and unable to reach the sewing machine pedal with her foot, her mother propped it up on the table so Ann could use her hand instead.
She dyed her first piece of cloth at age 15. Her interest grew, and she went on to earn a bachelor's degree in textile design from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1989. Her work is represented by Pentimento Gallery in Chicago.
Self-employed for three years, Mueller has designed window treatments for elegant restaurants and simple kitchens; created table linens, furniture throws, drapes and wall art; and dyed cloth in bulk to match a particular color.
About a year ago, Mueller and her mother arrived in Sunnyvale, where a converted garage serves as her studio. Shelves filled with yards of muslin, polished and raw silks, heavy brocades, lush velvets and imported Indian sheers line one entire wall.
The day this writer visited, crushed velvet, dyed in a marbled pattern of blues, reds and pinks, sprawled atop a 20-foot-long work table improvised from two large pieces of thick plywood. Mueller lifts one of the completed velvet shawls she has constructed. She points to roses imprinted on the fabric.
"That's my silkscreen print design," she says proudly.
Mueller created the roses using a process called dévoré (French for "devour"), or burnout. Chemicals are either applied directly to the desired area in a thick paste, or the desired area is left exposed while the rest of the fabric is protected in some manner and the entire piece is immersed in chemicals.
She says batiking is a way to protect fabric by covering it with melted wax. Another more common method to protect areas is physically preventing the dye from entering by tying it.
Mueller's shawls sell for about $125 at upscale department stores and are available in the Bay Area at P.R. Coonley in the Stanford Shopping Center.
"It's really fun too show her work," store manager Wanda Hart says. "Some of her shawls may also be worn as miniskirts or used as a table runner."
No project is too big or to small for Mueller to tackle. She has designed opulent corner window treatments of velvet trimmed in tassels as well as simple white kitchen curtains appliquéd with vegetables. Her linens begin at $100 and have sold for as much as $1,000.
"To use a dye house, you have to have one or two thousand yards dyed. The smaller clothing designers may only want 50 yards or 5 yards of a color. So they come to me. I usually don't know what the finished product will look like," she said.
Mueller transforms the fabric in the family washer and dryer. "I wash all my rags afterward, which gets rid of any residual dye in the washer and dryer."
She admits to having a few accidents, however. "Once I left a mop in the sink. It plugged up the drain, and purple sludge-water draining from the washer overflowed onto the garage floor. It was a mess."
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, January 31, 1996
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.