Another Day of Dyeing!

Dianne and I got together to dye again this Thursday and first we did a little show and tell of what she had done the week before.  This was one she did with the New Black from ProChem.   

 These were three pieces done with an Intense Blue and put on large poles on the diagonal.  The first was an overdye on a Mixing Red.

 

The top piece was scrunched and tied up and dipped in a dark green.

This piece was wrapped on a small pole on the diagonal and squished down and dyed with a mix of brown and black.  The Basic Brown is always too reddish for me and I like this dark chocolate.

This was done by doing hand stitching and pulling tight and dyed with a mix of Scarlet and Basic Brown.

 I was anxious to try the new Gray that is a pure color (and not a mix like all previous grays).  Both Dianne and I did a gradation using the same concentration of dye and one yard pieces.  This is Dianne's result and below is my result.

Mine are obviously much darker and I had a bag break so I think that is why the one piece is lighter than I would expect.  The difference -- hers was pfd and mine was pfd and Mercerised which gives you a much deeper color which really shows here.

 I can finally use up the remaining Mixing Gray I have hoarded since 1999!!  They stopped making it years ago and it was a prepared gray.  This was is just great and I am so happy I happened upon a Facebook posting which pointed me to Carol Soderlund's blog on the new color!

I also did another gradation which I had great hopes for.  Like a beginner, I somehow forgot to add the soda ash!!!  So I got a bunch of very pale blue pieces of fabric!  Well, into the overdye pile!!

I did throw some pieces of pink fabric into a couple of the pots to overdye the and they are pretty boring and will get overdyed again!!  This was a bit of a surprise.  I had a set of fat quarters that were a gradation of Mixing Red and not particularly exciting.  I overdyed them with a 3 percent solution of Sun Yellow and got a really nice gradation and I could definitely see them in flowers in the future.  I really do like the effect you get when you overdye a gradation with a set percentage of another color.  

Now I am trying to figure out what colors to come up with in one of our Extreme Overdyeing events a week from tomorrow!

A Day of Shibori Dyeing

Two mornings this week I got up at dawn (which is pretty late this time of year but still...).  There were just enough clouds to make the sunrise really pretty both days.  The second day I grabbed the camera and hurried down to our beach trying to catch the first few rays!

 Thursday I headed to my friend Dianne's house with a car packed full of dyes, clamps and clothespins as she wanted to learn to do some shibori.  I just grabbed a few of my already dyed fabrics that I had brought down here.  They were some of the lighter colors that were just boring as they were.  I bring down fabrics that are small chunks for the most part figuring on doing some random scrappy quilts.  I tend to dye larger pieces of yardage these days.  This piece was an exception in that it was a large piece of fabric dyed sun yellow originally.  This was sewn into a double tube and put on a 5 inch wide piece of pvc pipe and then pushed down with rubber bands at the top and bottom.  It was dyed in a brown/black dye bath.  I used a bit too much dye in these dye baths but you do get a gradation effect.

This is one of my favorite techniques for shibori and is the most labor intensive.  You basically put folds in the fabric and then do a running stitch and pull tight.  You can make any design  you want.  Again a little too much dye so not enough definition.  It was again brown/black over a pale yellow.

This was another yellow overdyed piece.  It was dyed with a brown/scarlet mix and was again sewn into a tube and put on a 5 inch pvc pipe.

 This was a fat quarter from one of my overdyeing experiments.  It was a plain leaf green which I inadvertently overdyed with leaf green!  This was twisted on the diagonal on a 5 inch pvc pipe with rubber bands at either end.

This is the same as above only using a much smaller pvc pipe -- probably only an inch in diameter.

This was another piece that was sewn into a tube and pushed down a 5 inch pipe.  It is a half yard piece and was yellow and obviously from the way it took color, it was variegated.  It is very difficult to see the variegation in a yellow but you can see it when overdyed as the more intensely yellow dyed will not take as much of the blue (in this case).

 This was a clamped piece where I used two mirrors and clamps (which kept falling off as the mirrors were too slippery).  This was accordion folded in one direction and then again in the opposite direction.

This is again the mirrors clamped on a fat quarter that was pink.  I presoaked the pink so it resisted the dye a bit more.  I overdyed with blue/violet.

All of these pieces were immersion dyed.  I used about 3 gal of water, 2 cups of salt per container and about 4 tsps of dye.  I added 5 tbsps of soda ash after fifteen minutes and then let it sit for another hour.  To get better penetration, it helps to move the stuff around during the first half hour.

Ice Dyeing Through 16 Layers -Shicebori Maybe?

 I pushed the envelope with this group with some more successful than others.  My challenge was to see how many layers of fabric the dye would flow through and give some semblance of the same pattern.  I did two different foldings of fabric to test this.  Fold 1 was folding one yard in quarters accordion style across the width of the fabric and then in quarters again across the lengths, again accordion style not just folds.  Fold 2 was folding in eighths across the width again accordion style and then just folding it in half across the length.  Both give you 16 layers.  I used pfd print cloth for all but one which was Egyptian cotton.  I figured the weave of the fabric (the Egyptian cotton is higher thread count) would affect it which it didn't seem to do. 

This was probably my favorite of the bunch.  I utilized Black 604, Intense Blue and a little Blue/Violet.  This was a Fold 1 variation.  I tried to put the black along the edges which doesn't show up as much on this one as some others.

This had a lot of black in it and is nicer looking in person  It looks to me like 8 is about the maximum thicknesses where you get the same patterns.  If I cut this at the half yard mark, I would have two different looking pieces.  Of course, they will make awesome fat quarters!!

Another black, blue and purple that seemed to photograph better.

This was my favorite as it looked like there were circles and a center point.  You can see most clearly here the folds that resulted in 16 thicknesses.  Again, I put the black around the edge.  I didn't scrunch these very much if any either.

Another one that didn't photo well -- a lot of black but quite nice in person.

This was one of the ones that was folded in eighths and then in half (Fold 2).  Again, looks like I could cut down the middle and  have two different patterns.

Another of the folds across but instead of folding in half, I just sxcrunched it up tighter.  I like parts of this one more than other parts.  I have found that I like to restrict my colors rather than using the whole rainbow on one piece which I did with a couple here.

This was a Fold 2 example.  I liked the top half but too many colors as I think I  used them all but tried not to put complementary colors next to each other.  I might not have used quite enough dye as well for these colors that didn't go through the 16 layers as effectively.  

If I decide to get some more ice next week, I may try some with just 8 layers to see how that goes.  This is terribly addictive!!  I may have to give this a new name as new ideas keep coming!!  So "shicebori" it is for now.....

July RAFA Meeting

For the day after a holiday, we had a really good sized group today which was lovely with even three new members so we are creeping up to our limit again.  We meet the first Thursday of every month year round at the First Baptist Church in Fairport, NY.

Show and Tell was a little lean this month but Donna never disappoints us!  Here she is holding up one of her several new scarves.  This one features her own hand dyed silks felted together to give a double sided scarf -- very cool.

Here she is holding a bag that she knitted with  yarn that had flowers felted into the yarn already!

This is the "nipple" scarf which she made using the shibori technique and floppy disks as her resist.  She refused to overdye!

This was another of the silk scarves.  She must be clamping nice and tight and using pre-moistened silk to get such nice crisp markings!  She also had several scarves that she had dyed, clamped and then discharged with Thiox.  Note that her t-shirt is one of this latter technique.

I just loved this quilt that Kathie Everett did.  Kathie is a new member and we hope we see lots more of her.  She was the winner of our 2011 GVQC Iron Quilter prize.  Loved the color and design of this quilt!  She just needs to get retired so she can do more!!

It was great to welcome Glynnis back into the group.  She has gotten a full time teaching job again so hasn't been at the meetings for awhile.  This is a sample from a class she is teaching.  She is another of our many hand dyers and this was made with her fabrics.

This was a piece of fabric that was created  Sue Donovan in  class taught by  our own Julie Brandon at her studio in Wayne County.  Julie is now doing digital printing with one of those large Epson digital printers and I am itching to get out there.   She can print on all sorts of fabrics.  Her website is Red Dog Enterprises and if you click on the link, it will take you there.  She is also offering her home/large studio right on the water as a retreat location and can sleep up to six people.

Julie is also offering a class where  you make a fused glass scarf holder in the morning and then do your own Procion MX dyed silk scarf in the afternoon (Val Schultz teaches this technique).  

Sarah offered a lesson on braiding with beads  using a Kumihimo disk and some of the results are just spectacular.  I stopped on my way home to get some bead thread and needles!


I should comment that I haven't posted in a week because I have taken the opportunity while my dear husband is away, to dye up a bunch of fabrics (101 yards so far in three days).  The ironing takes as long as the dyeing plus I like to make sure I have documented what I have done so I can show people what colors I have used and the results that I have gotten.  Hopefully all the ironing will be done soon.  My sister is coming next Tuesday as we have the Ricky Tims Seminar here in Rochester the following weekend.  It will be the largest event that Ricky Tims has had.  Gail and I will be the official photographers so will be busy with that as well as hopefully getting to at least one local bird sanctuary!  I have already arranged for a quilting day out at Marcia's with Priscilla!  I am also cleaning a bit too as I don't want to totally gross her out!!  (I think I can buy her silence with fabric though....)

No Power Dyeing Today!

For years, a session dyeing generally meant I would have 50 yards of new fabric by the end of the day and would dye like this for about a week before I just gave up and ironed the piles of fabric I had created! Speed was of the essence.

Since spending so much time marbling lately, my approach to dyeing has modified a bit as well. I am thinking more about what I am doing, trying some new things and just working on yardage until I get what I would like at which point I call it the end. So now there are only a few pieces from each day and I will work on those until I am happy rather than put them in the ugly basket -- although marbling might be just the thing to add eventually!

This was a piece that I folded and put to alligator clips on. All these pieces were immersion dyed in ProChem's Intense Blue. I had about 500 gms of fabric and I used about two level tbsps of the dye and two cuts of salt per the 3 gallons of water. I used about 1 1/2 cups of soda ash. All the pieces here went into the same dye bath.
This was the plain white fabric as above but with the clips with the circles at the end from the dollar store. These previous two I presoaked in water so that they would resist the dye a bit more.


This was an overdye of the intense blue over basically a 3% turquoise/3% sun yellow that I did using lwi. I loosely wrapped this yard over a rolled up piece of needlepoint canvas thinking that the dye would penetrate all layers better which it did. I was surprised that I didn't get any markings from the needlepoint canvas. It is a pretty color. I didn't presoak this one but did presoak the next one.

This was also a piece of the sun yellow/turquoise which I overdyed with the intense blue and used the clips again after accordion folding. Don't think I will do any more layers here but you never know!

This was one of the pieces from the previous dye session that I said I would overdye. It was originally the yucky green/gold and I had folded it and rubber banded it and dyed in the intense blue/navy mixture. Those are the darker lines. This time I wound it loosely over a 5 inch pvc pipe. I didn't presoak this one as I wanted more of the dye to go over the yucky part that didn't dye with the last bath. I will probably do no more on this one, however I reserve the right.....

Today the dye pots will have to remain silent as I MUST clean my bedroom so I can enjoy my new birthday tv!

Dyeing Etc., Etc., Etc.......

Dyeing back in session! I had some hideous yellows that needed to be overdyed as well as some of the greens from the turquoise/yellow day. So I gathered together some miscellaneous stuff, did some miscellaneous wrapping and other mechanical resists (clothespins, rubber bands and string). I also added in some upholstery fabric that I had which I figured might dye well as it was part rayon and part cotton and natural colored -- small pieces but would make nice placemats. After I put the resists on, I soaked all the fabrics in warm water long enough so that it would get all the way through. This keeps the inside whiter (or its original color) as the water acts as a resist as well.


I mixed together about a tbsp of deep navy (ProChem 414) and Intense Blue (ProChem 406, I believe). We shall see what happens! I didn't weigh, I barely even measured the dyes but did add a couple of cups of salt into the solution figuring I had about a pound of fabric. I will add in about 1 1/2 cups of soda ash soon as I think there is about 3 gallons of water in the pail. I haul the fabric out of the pail before adding and mixing in the soda ash though. I might try to dissolve it in some water before I do that. Then I will let everything sit for a couple of hours and then voila (I hope!!)


They are in the washer and the first reports are excellent!! The fabric that I purchased for aprons for my BIL dyes beautifully and from Joanns no less!! So (even though I said no more white fabric, just this once...) I will head over and get a bolt of it as it will be great for tote bags, etc. as it is about the hand of canvas -- whoopee! I love when I find new fabric that dyes well!

This is the long one with the rubber bands just holding it together on the fabric which was accordion folded. Very important to use accordion folds so that you get relatively even dyeing.
I am going to shibori this one again using a different pattern.


This was the one on the pole with the string around it as well. It literally looks like four different pieces as it was a whole yard that I folded in half and then wrapped.

This is the one that has the rectangular clothespins along each side of the accordion folds.

This was the the white canvas fabric that I bought from Joanns. It was accordion folded and then the round little clothespins from the Dollar Store were applied. This is definitely my favorite, but of course it was fabric from scratch.

Summer has Arrived (Finally)...

If I thought it would last more than a few days, I would take out my tables and set myself up for dyeing outside to take advantage of the humidity and warm temps. It will probably just drop back to fall weather in a day or so though!!

The marbling of the uglies that I have treated is almost complete. It really is a lot more challenging than simply playing with the white or black surfaces!! There have been some happy accidents and some that nothing will retrieve! (It's bad when your wipe up cloth looks better than your fabric!)

Found another item to add to my list of "50 Ways to Know you Have Been Dyeing too much"(http://quilterb-bethsblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/50-ways-to-tell-that-dyeing-has-taken.html). I spotted a kitty litter plastic container in my neighbor's trash and now it is mine!! It is one of the high ones (40 lb Scoop Away) which will be great for some shibori (which I what I think I am going to do when I get the dye buckets up and going). A lot of my best plastic containers have been culled from the neighborhood trash on my early morning retrieval of the paper. Have I no shame? I even have others searching for the extra large plastic buckets that pool chemicals come in! Too many buckets are short and squat which is not great when you have fabric squeezed on a pole and want to get as much of the pole in the dye bath as possible!

These are the continuations of the over-marbling. The stripey ones look good on both sides -- don't know which side of the fabric I like better!

Two out of the three of these are unique pieces and one is the back side of one of the others!

I do like last one. The dyed piece it was on wasn't bad but was really missing something. I like the subtle swirling color in the background and the swirls of black on top.