Another Hot Day of Dyeing Outside

Well, trying to take advantage of the really hot days (we broke all records with the 92 yesterday), I spent a lot of the day outside dye painting in my garage. I was going for really dark browns with the starburst look to them. It has been a couple of years since I have done this kind of dyeing. I dye painted 8 yards of fabric and stacked them outside on the table.

Well, the results were mixed. I did get some really dark colors of brown and kind of grey which was good to note. However, I obviously mixed the dyes with too much intensity (was thinking about the gradations I guess and not just the painting of the yards!). They are all pretty dark and and probably would have been better with about half the dye concentrations that I used! I have a feeling that there will not be warm enough days from now on to do this some more and dear husband is back and will reclaim his garage for more manly things! Now that I have found the controller for the heating mattress pad though, I should be able to do some things down on my dye table in the basement. I am running out of the good Testfabrics broadcloth though and might have to put in an order. I like this best for this technique or anything that requires lots of patterning.

Tomorrow I will get down to doing the gradations I need to get done to start on my two Yellowstone pieces that I designed at Marcia's the other day. Most natural types of landscapes -- especially out West -- require lots and lots of neutrals and these are about the toughest to achieve well but I will forge onward with some experiments and hopefully will get some repeatable browns and greys and blue/greys.