As you're reading this, I'm driving far, far away...
I'm heading a bit south for a packed week of back-to-back meetings, starting as soon as I get out of my car at my destination on Wednesday afternoon. I get home next Tuesday, so I'm making this quick post to tide us all over until I'm home and might actually be able to accomplish something again. (Well, accomplish something other than getting some sleep.)
You may recall that I did some more dye experiments on Sunday afternoon. The results are in!
Top and bottom left: I was testing out a new technique picked up from Ann Johnston's DVD. I soaked the fabric in soda ash, then laid it out on a table (one of my newly-recovered-with-vinyl tables!), and then slowly poured a little dye on at a time and rubbed it in with my hands. Top picture is using gray dye and very intentionally creating folds and pleats in such a way to create some directionality. The bottom left looked a lot better wet--it's actually a mix of three colors (gray, yellow, and yellow green). It would make a nice background if one were looking for that particular, slightly odd shade of yellow-green-gray, but it's also a good candidate for over-dyeing or some other surface treatment. It simply wasn't what I was picturing would happen. And that's why I love dyeing so much. I so rarely get what I was thinking I'd get--it keeps me on my toes!
Bottom right: two purple scarves I did as testers for someone to look at during my meetings this weekend. I'm probably going to be dyeing about 50 scarves in all, by next September, for us to give out as gifts at one of our events. The one on the left is silk, the one on the right is cotton, both the same dye and dye strength. Just gives you a sense of how different fabrics react to the same dye.
Center left: Just playing with a couple of other cotton scarves I had on hand. Not overly keen on the way either of these turned out--the colors aren't as vibrant as I'd have expected. I'll have to look up what type/weight of cotton this is because it definitely takes the dye color differently than my usual fabric does.
Center right: 100% cotton yarn, done in an ice dye parfait. Interestingly the one on the bottom is the one that ended up with a lot of white left. I must not have loosened it up as much as I thought when I put it in the container. No biggie--I'm thinking I'll overdye it with yellow. The yarn is slightly thicker than 8 perle cotton, I think. I'll be interested to work with it and see what it feels like.
And now for the really impressive ones. I did another ice dye parfait because I wanted to "break" my black and teal dyes to see what component colors would come out. Ice dyeing is one of the best ways I've found to break a dye. And what a fantastic way to see what colors go into making black and teal!
This one was the bottom layer.
This one was on the top.
All I can say is, wowzer. I'll be breaking a lot more of that teal dye!
Oh, and I did get all my print scraps cut for #Scrapitude, finally, and started plugging away at the background. I plan on doing a marathon session of cutting when I get home next week. And then I'm home for a few weekends so I have hopes of catching up!