Sunday, October 09, 2011

Long Weekend (in the Dyepots!!)

I have a long weekend, and so far have spent at least one solid day in the studio.  I got my next Tangled Textiles piece totally done- but no looking at that until the reveal day on the 18th.  

I bought a circular rayon scarf from Dharma a few months ago, and finally got around to dyeing it.  Yeah, the red and gray that I've already posted.  Something about the scarf bugged me- not the dye job, but the size.  I decided it was too wide, so I cut it in half- and now I had two almost identical red and gray scarves.  I like the colors and patterning, but I don't need two!


So I cooked one half in a Thiox bath.  All the gray turned to white, and the red areas turned yellow.  At least that's what color it was when I took it out of the Thiox bath.  After I took it out of the washer, it looked like this.  Yuck.


If it had stayed the yellow, I would have had lots of options for overdyeing.  This not-so-lovely color (straight out of  a baby's diaper, I think!) left me with limited choices.  I did manage to find something I thought would work out of the Dye Book, though.

Three hours later I had this.  Better, but still not enought zing for me.


So I went through my stencils and picked out a couple of Paintstik colors I thought would blend, and went to work.  By this afternoon, I had this!


I ended up using three colors instead of two- I highlighted the copper squares with gold on two edges.  I'm happy now, it feels done.

One interesting side note- if you look closely, you can see the thread I used to finish the edge- it's on the left in the photo.  I used cotton thread, figuring it would dye with the fabric.  Apparently it has enough polyester that it won't dye, or at least not much.  It's not obvious, though, so I'll still wear the scarf- with a great deal of pleasure!

I also started another quilt, but Blogger is being a pain and taking forever to download photos.  So I am calling it a night, maybe it will be more cooperative tomorrow.

7 comments:

Gina said...

What a great transition you took your scarf on - looks great and I enjoyed seeing the steps you took to get it there.

What Comes Next? said...

what a change! I love seeing the steps, and hearing what you did along the way - you now have two fabulous scarves - wahoo!

dutchcomfort said...

I like to see the steps it took to make these fabrics so beautiful.

You got me scared... the reveal date of the TT challenge is the 21st of October! Phew, I still need to get started!

Debra Dixon said...

Good save on your scarf!

To get pics to load in lightening fast speed, reduce the pixels. It won't change the quality of the photo. I just reduce mine by half.

Renate said...

What a wonderful way to rescue an unfavourable result! I really like the end result!

Vicki Miller said...

what an amazing transformation! The red scarf fabric woulf fit well into my challenge piece!

JB said...

What a great metamorphosis from the yuck to the truly gorgeous. I'm impressed!