Dyeing a Four Color Gradation

I still have lots of dye left and don't want to waste it. So I mixed up 4 colors that are sequenced by adding more red. This is a method to dye several colors all on one piece of fabric.

 I started with a fat 1/2 yard that was soaked in soda ash solution. I arranged part of it in the dish and added the 1st color. I really manipulated the material to get an even distribution of the dye.

 I pushed that colored part of fabric up the other side of the dish and arranged more of the white fabric in the dish. Then a 2nd color was added and manipulated. Then a 3rd color was added.

This photo was turned upside down, but it shows that I added the rest of the fabric to the dish with the 4th color in the sequence.

This is the final fabric. I love the color gradation.

 

Shibori Style Dyeing in the Microwave

It was time to use the rest of the dyes I had mixed a week before. So I thought I would have some fun pleating my fabric and dyeing with 2 colors.

 I started by pressing my pfd fabric. I did 2 pieces, one was pressed with the accordion pleats going with the grain, the other was pressed with the accordion pleats across the grain of the fabric.

 I soaked the pleated fabric in soda ash solution, squeezed out the excess, and then placed it in this microwave safe plastic container.

 I added a pretty peach color I had mixed to the bottom of the container. The fabric soaked it up.

 This is the 2nd piece to which I added a darker reddish color.

 This is a side view of the fabrics in the dishes. I let them sit for about 15 minutes.

 Then I carefully turned each one so that the undyed side was on the bottom of the dish and added a 2nd color.

You can see how the color traveled from the side view.

 I covered the dishes and nuked them in the microwave (an ancient one that is no longer used for food) for about a minute each.

These are my results.

Silk Scarf Dyeing with Procion MX Dyes

What a wonderful Thanksgiving with our family. My daughters were home and I thought a scarf dyeing project would be fun to introduce them to fabric dyeing. It was my first time mixing my own colors from the 3 primary colors at home. I ordered several silk scarves from Dharma.

 I had this box that I measured the dyes in. It helped to contain the dye powders so they didn't fly around my laundry room.

 For each scarf, my daughters chose 3 colors in the Sunshine color family of Carol Soderlund.

Time to mix the colors

 They soaked each scarf in warm water and arranged it on a tray. See the plastic cups with the mixed dye colors?

Each of the 3 colors was poured onto the scarf.

 We are mushing the scarf about to get the color everywhere.

This is what it looked like after we manipulated the scarf to move the dye.

This is Maggie's scarf. She is adding the fixative.

 We covered the scarves with plastic wrap to keep the air out and covered them with a towel to keep them warm.

We decided that was fun and so we did some more. I didn't have any more trays so we used these plastic bins that washed lettuce comes in to arrange the scarves and apply the dye.

 After the batching, I washed them in synthrapol in Hot water and hung them to dry.

We did 5 scarves in all.

Melanie is modeling hers.