fiberhart

Hot and Dyeing

The weather has been perfect for dyeing since Friday.  I started early, got the first run of a two-step overdye started.  I used bright yellow, a mixed color which is something I don't normally do.  

I am also giving up US measures when it comes to dyeing.  So I weighed my fabric, weighed the dyes, and did concentrates of my colors.  So much simpler, fewer utensils to wash.  Once you quit trying to convert back and forth between metric and US, it is a snap- metric makes a lot more sense.  The math is a ton easier, too!

Other than the overdyes, I planned to work on texture, since those are the class samples I need for my workshop in Colorado.  I stayed up til 1:30 am last night to finish all the washing out, and I am very happy with my results!

I let the first batch sit all day in the sun in our driveway.  In the past I've washed out everything before I re-sort for the second dyebath, but I decided to see what happens if I just rinse.  Here's some of the yellows, ready for the blue dyebath.  I got those going Friday night, and let them sit overnight and all day Saturday.

I've been saving some bubblewrap to use.  I wondered what would happen if I rolled up a piece of fabric in it to batch- would the circles leave any marks?  So I did three of those--

Those simple dish tubs from Wallyworld are great- I'm thinking I'll need more of them. 

I pleated, swirled, scrunched, and laid fabric flat on plastic and squirted dye on.  Dry fabric is easier (IMHO) to manipulate than wet, so that's what I did.  Then I'd just dump on hot water, let it soak for a bit, and squeeze it out without  messing up my manipulations.  Worked great.

Saturday night I started washing fabric out, after kicking up the temperature on my water heater.  I wanted to see if that made any difference in getting all the unfixed dye out of the fabric.

The overdyes came out great.  As you can tell, I just can't get enough of green!

Plenty of blues and yellows too.  I massaged these quite a bit, but there is still lots of patterning.

The bubblewrap was a mixed bag.  Mostly they came out looking like solids- nice, but not much in the way of texture.  This was the one exception-

It's kinda-sorta visible in this picture- but look at the detail!

I had two pieces of fabric in the piece of bubble wrap, so I don't know what caused the differences.  I know I used lighter value dye on this one, and I think it was in the outer part of the roll.  So this is something I'll experiment with again.

And here's what I ended up with, all washed and ironed--

All told, I think I dyed between twelve and fifteen yards of fabric.  I am very happy with my results!  As you can see, the studio is a mess, and the wet studio a bigger mess. I'll have to get that cleaned up today, since I need to pack for a two day workshop with Laura Cater-Woods in Salt Lake tomorrow.  So a closer look at some of those yummy pieces will have to wait for another post.

Hope your weekend is a creative one!