Liz

Liz

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Dyeing Fun, Part 3

We had FABulous weather for dyeing. The weather was warm, the skies ranged from a little cloudy to overcast most of the day, and we had no rain.

Before we left the house, I soaked my fabrics in soda ash water and spun them in the washer:



After we gathered and got the third tent put up (my friend and her husband had put up the two awnings a couple of us had delivered earlier in the week), I took my board of flour-pasted fabric and started cracking the crust:
Then, I applied a thickened black dye over the assemblage:
I can hardly wait to see how this turns out!

Then, I laid out a painter's drop cloth and set out a four-yard length of fabric, letting it crinkle and scrunch a little in places, but mostly being flat. I mixed up three different shades of blue, each in a different jar. Then, I took each of the jars over to the fabric and, with a paint brush, flicked and dribbled dye all over the fabric, walking around and around it. A couple of the spatters ended up on my face, causing my friends to hand me some scrubbing lotion and send me into the house to clean up! Here's what the fabric looked like right after my ministrations:
I then went on to set out other large yardages with smaller pieces of plastic underneath, necessitating more scrunching, and some manipulation of fabric after I had applied the dye so as to get the dye evenly distributed. I also took some of the smaller pieces of fabric I had (fat quarter size and smaller) and tucked them into folds and under the larger piece. Here's a beauty shot for you:

Those pieces are large enough to possibly become dresses! One of my pals didn't want to dye today, so she had brought a sewing project; however, she had a couple of items she wanted to get dyed. I told her to pick out any color she liked. This is the color she picked:
Isn't that luscious? I SO wanted an orange Creamsicle after this! By the end of the day, we noticed that the blue dye in the large piece had done some migrating, and the tones didn't seem quite as starkly different. I hope you can see that in this long view.
The friend who wanted the orange fabric asked what she could do in return, and I told her to take my picture. The apron was a Christmas present from two of three greatest nieces in the world. Isn't it great?
At last, I got home, and spread out the fabrics in the condo's courtyard to dry in the sun. I have found this gets stronger, richer colors.
I'll do the washout either Sunday or Monday and post pictures after that.

1 comment:

Natalie J said...

That looks like a really fun project! I've never thought of dyeing in that manner before and it's an interesting technique. Thanks for sharing. :)