More on the Salt Dyes -- What Not to Do

My favorite begonias are going crazy in the planter on the front steps. I just loved this pinky/orange/yellow one.


Well, the night last night was super humid and that combined with some dyes that I think were over the hill combined to make a nice piece really ugly! The final words are not in but it didn't look too good this morning when I went out to the garage. It was soaking wet, the humidity had been so high which of course caused the dyes to migrate even more than I wanted and made the trails disappear and just become lighter smudges of mud. Hopefully, the trails were well established and that the further migration won't obliterate them completely.

Well, after washing it didn't turn out super ugly as some of the trails returned and if I split it into fat quarters, it will be interesting. I think that a little less humidity and more heat would work better.


So back to some safe colors today -- the blues and blues only! No more of those three primaries even though it looked pretty good to begin with. I think the humidty was just too high and there needs to be some drying for this process to work properly.

Now my other piece that I was trying to make for a quilting buddy is about as ugly as you can possibly get so my cure-all for that is to just overdye with blue! Something will come out of it!! I suspect that I am not going to be able to meet her requirements! I will make one more try with a smaller piece today and see what happens. The color she wants is a muddy very pale beige which then becomes more yellow as you move to the top of the cloth (and even paler). My attempt using the colors that worked in the gradation produced the ugliest color of green mud you have ever seen!

Well, true to my word, I only did blues for this first piece today, trying out all the blues I have!! So it is turquoise, then intense blue, basic blue and finally deep navy (the pure navy). I didn't use the mixing blue as I know that works but had no idea whether the navy or intense blue works. Twenty minutes have passed and already some deep trails in the intense blue so looks like that will be a wonderful choice as well. We shall see. Of course now dear husband is whining about blocking the garage door with my tables. The weather has not been cooperative though so I haven't been able to depend on the weather outside the garage all week and I had made up the dyes on Monday. I know they wouldn't last with any strength at all much longer. Tomorrow will be the last of this batch I think.

The green mud piece has now been unceremoniously dumped into navy blue and mixing blue where it will stay until it behaves better! I have learned the hard way not to use basic blue and intense blue as my overdye as intense blue doesn't discharge at all and basic blue discharges to an ugly beige that is not at all interesting.

This is one area of the piece I did yesterday. Looks very faded to me but in small doses, it was acceptable.


This is a second area. I have no way of photographing the whole piece outside yet but looks better in small doses anyway.



This is the newest piece on the two tables. This was taken about 10minutes after I put the last dye on. It is turquoise on the edges, going to intense blue and then basic blue with navy in the middle. I know that basic blue and turquoise don't go together well without something splitting them as turquoise is a very green blue and basic blue is the only red blue of the Procion MX dyes.



This is a closeup where you can see the salt has already started acting. I just swept up the rest of the salt as there was enough movement for me so now I will let it dry which hopefully it will do. It is still pretty muggy out but the blues almost always turn out well.

This shows the trails already starting pretty well. Double click to see it bigger!