Thursday 2 July 2009

Dyeing Day



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Have you noticed how, when people say they won't be blogging much they keep popping up with posts? Hmmmmm! Well, I thought I would share with you what I was up to in the heat yesterday. It won't take you anything to guess that I was dyeing and I had a great time! I used just two colours in Procion Dyes, turquoise and magenta, and used a selection of fabrics including some muslin and scrim which I haven't photographed and a selection of yarns.
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In the tray above I folded cotton in half and then folded it into triangles and secured it with strong pegs. The centre parcel is cotton, again folded in half longways and then folded backwards and forwards (concertina'd) around foam letters and numbers (the sort you buy in the supermarket for children to play with. I got mine in Sainsburys). I secured this parcel together with white perle so that would dye too. The final piece of cloth in the tray is cotton pleated and then folded in thirds. All three pieces of fabric were soaked in water and wrung out before I started.
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Once all the fabric was prepared I used droppers to apply the dyes and carefully turned the wrapped fabrics round to make sure all sides were wet. I left all the fabrics to sit in the dye for about half an hour and then carefully dribbled salt water over and tipped the tray up so that the fabrics sat in the salt a bit (very scientific!). ~
I think I left the fabrics for another hour and then poured the soda solution on and left everything to batch for a total of about 6 hours. I had dyed a piece of silk but took that out after about 3 hours and unfortunately the result with that is very pale.
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So here are the results:




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This is the pegged piece. I was a bit surprised by the quality of the white marks but I like the effect.
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This piece I really love, you can make out the shape of some of the letters and you may be able to see the lines of the perle in places if you click on the photo.
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This is the folded traydyed piece and I'm hoping there's enough to make the backing for the Another Little Art Quilt Swap.
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I also did some sun resist dyeing too and I'll post that below.


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7 comments:

Digitalgran said...

These are wonderful Julie, now you have made me want a dye session. Where do I find the time? There must be a way :) Maybe a rest from bloggin would hel me too.

Heather said...

Your dyeing results are wonderful Julie - you must be delighted with them. Looking forward to seeing what they become!

Angela said...

I don't know how I managed to miss your last post but I'm glad I've caught up. You have made some beautiful fabric well done. What are you going to do with it all?

Unknown said...

And these too!!!!!

Françoise said...

They're gorgeous! Do you really plan to use the last one as a quilt backing?

The WestCountryBuddha said...

Wow these are really fabulous Julie. Lovely colours and tremendous patterns. You make me want to get out all the bottles and trays in the garage and have a go!

Unknown said...

these are gorgeous, I love the one with the letters but they are all beautiful.