Overdyeing- Leaving the Crapshoot!!

I haven't posted for two weeks, and you would think I have been busy in the studio, putting all my newly learned wisdom and knowledge to good use with fabric and dyes.  You would be wrong, unfortunately.

We've cleaned carpets, moved furniture, switched bedroom occupants.  I did get my dye bible completely put together in the midst of all that, and read through Carol's instructions multiple times.  I even did some formulas.  But not one bit of fabric, at least not until this weekend.

I dyed this piece of rayon/linen a few weeks ago.  

 You probably can't tell in the picture, but the pale color is not white but peachy.  I knew I wanted to change it, without drastically changing the red spirals.  And, I could not remember exactly what dyes I used to do this.

I used my dye bible to determine what color was closest to the background color I wanted to change, then picked the color I wanted it to be- a medium pale shade of grayed blue-lavender.  I did the math, and did two dye baths last night.  Since I was using fuschia and turquoise, I decided to do this in two separate dye baths, to avoid the dreaded color split that is so common with those two dyes.  After the first bath in red, the fabric looked like this:

 

I can see the very pale yellow under the pink, so I obviously mixed fuschia or light red dye with yellow to tone down the blue cast in both those dyes.  Next I overdyed it again, in a slightly darker value of turquoise.  This is how it came out of the dryer this morning:

It is hard to tell, but the fabric is definitely a grayed blue lavender- and the red spirals still look red.  In some places the orange is still easily visible.

The color in the pictures is not quite right, and I couldn't get it right in PSE.  But it is very close to the color in my book, and I am happy with it.  I am also ecstatic that I now have a tool to give me more control and predictability when I overdye!

I finally got around to doing something with the last piece of cotton spandex knit that I got in Reno.  I cut it in half lenghwise, and twisted the fabric tightly after soda soaking it.  I'm hoping to keep some of the white in this piece, so I added the dye while it was wet.  I'll pull this one out tomorrow- I've already chosen the pattern I'll use- another simple design that highlights the fabric and can be sewn in a couple of hours.

I'm really developing a preference for colors that teeter between two.  This one- is it green?  Blue?  I like the way a paler value of the color is wicking out.  More tomorrow after the washout!