Monday, April 27, 2015

A Dyeing Day with Dianne and My Sister

My sister decided she wanted to learn how to dye while she was visiting with a friend from Florida so dye we did!!  I did my usual first step for new dyers which is a gradation.  She chose this blue (with my help as I knew she would love this blue) which is Pro Chem's Basic Blue.  I haven't had time or inclination to iron any of the fabric we did but it was a full day!!

I also did the gradation of the Basic Blue as it is my favorite of the blues.  While my sister did a gradation of Golden Yellow (the only yellow that really shows some variation in a gradation), I did a gradation of Pro Chem's Dark Green to which I added about a 2% solution of Sun Yellow to each shade.  It made for a nice gradation!

The ladies were game to do some sequenced overdyeing.  This time instead of the five pots in each of two steps, we used three.  The first three colors were sun yellow, golden yellow and mixing red.  These were then overdyed with intense blue, basic blue and turquoise.

We took the leftover dyes and just played by soaking in soda ash and then packing pretty tightly in a tray and poured dyes over them.  The ladies were very happy with their results!!

2 comments:

Kay Koeper Sorensen said...

Loved seeing all the dyeing. Nice commentary too.

Kathy Banfield said...

Gradation dyeing is my favorite way of making a mess, next to marbling, that is! I wish my sister would take an interest in doing that sort of thing with me.You are so blessed.