A Dyeing Day

Well, I am trying something different this time!!  I am going to use high concentration liquid dyes this time instead of just spreading powder around.  It is the technique that Cindy Lohbeck uses although I certainly don't know all her tricks and how much to use to get the effect that she does on her beautiful, beautiful pieces!!  I have done all sorts of folds and am putting more pieces on their side like I do the t-shirts.  I also fan folded a lot of pieces although the largest was a fat half yard as I really have trouble getting the fan folds nice an even on anything larger.  We shall see.  I am also only going to use blues, reds and yellows so we shall see!  I did a little bit of tying as well but nothing really tight as I really don't care for the white spaces that tie dyers get!

I will be using 6 tbsps of dye per 2 cups of urea water -- pretty intense as Ann Johnston does 1 tbsp per cup for the darkest shades.  1 tbsp is equivalent to about 15 grams of dye.  The ice will of course dilute the effect a bit but I do want the color to go all the way through everything.  I will be putting my usual "drop" cloths underneath all these folded pieces.  

This was the first of the folds.  It was fat halves which were soaked in soda ash after being folded into 8ths.  The two small pieces on the side ended up in the middle as the ice kept falling off.  The long fat halves were scrunched up so they would fit.  There is a drop cloth on the grate underneath.  I didn't put one on top like I usually do as I figured liquid dyes would not have the spotting that you get with the dye powders.  Below is the same bunch after putting the liquid dye on and then about an hour later.  The temp outside was about 65 but the pieces ended up in the sun and the ice was melted by late afternoon.

This was the same one pretty soon after applying the liquid dyes.  I only worked with primaries today.  This was mixing red, intense blue and sun yellow applied in stripes across.

 This was after an hour.

These and the next two were the second bunch.  These were all either mandalas on edge with many edges exposed or fat quarters pleated.  I used strongest red, lemon yellow and intense blue I believe on this bunch.

This was group three which was mostly my traditional mandalas in different sizes with one odd one on the bottom.

This was the fourth bunch which had a very wide folded fabric and a bunch of smaller pieces squeezed on.

Tomorrow will be the unveiling!  I will post what they looked like sitting in their boxes without any ice (they are sitting in my driveway overnight) and hopefully I will get them washed soon after!  I don't have a microwave down here that I can use so I have to be patient and wait for them to batch long enough.  They spent a lot of time in the sun today so that should be good!