Dyeing Fun!

I had a great afternoon yesterday doing some dyeing. I have to dye nearly every week to keep up with demand and ensure that I have a good supply of fabric at all times. Yesterday I decided to experiment. It was pretty cold but I mixed my soda ash with quite hot water so that the fabric was warm when it went into the dye and I mixed the dyes with a warm salt mix. So warmth all around except in the air!


This piece crumpled and folded and I just dripped the dyes on indiscrimately. I am very pleased with the results which would be good on a piece of faux chenille.


Another randomly dripped piece but what isn't so easy to see is that I sat the fabric on a piece of plastic mesh and the mesh marks are visible if one looks closely. I want to do more with this technique and see what other marks I can make the dye show.


This piece was truly experimental in that I sprinkled the dye powder directly onto soda ash soaked scrumpled fabric. I was a tad heavy handed but I like the effect very much. I shall do this again and try it especially with black and brown dyes which have so many colours in them.




I was truly experimental here as I sprayed soda ash soaked scrumpled fabric with aluminium car spray paint to see what happened. Then I spooned two blues over the fabric which pooled in the hollows and ran off the aluminium. When I came to rinse it out after curing the aluminium stayed fast so I was quite excited to see what would come out of the washing machine. I wash my fabric on a 60 degree wash with extra rinses so it is quite hot and takes nearly two hours. Sadly the heat did for the aluminium and it all washed out - wouldn't have done if it had been on a bit of clothing! However the result is lovely and I will try using aluminium spray paint again as a resist with a bit more planning!


This was another multi-coloured dye piece with a mixture of pleating and scrumpling. As is the piece below which has a look of feathers about it.


This piece was very successful in that I wanted to portray rocks and rocks is what I've got. However can I do it again?


And this last piece was using up left over dyes without any thought as to colour mixing. They were just thrown on as I emptied the jars. The colours I was using were mustard, turquoise, slate blue, tarton green and violet. I also had a Christmas red on the go made from cerise and orange but I don't think any of that went into this mix.

All in all I was pleased with my results and it will be hard to let them all go. I shall want to squirrel a couple away for my own use.