I finally got round to playing with my dyes today although I have missed my chance with the snow dyeing. I had prepared several fabrics by putting them into a soda soak and drying them on a rack and also a Journal Quilt and a quilt for a challenge.
This first quilt is 12” x 24” and is for the challenge being run on Expedition Quilt Art. I have cut/torn various widths of different fabrics and then woven them and quilted them to a layer of wadding and a backing fabric. With some difficulty I managed to do a wrap round binding which I stitched to the front.
This Journal Quilt is 10” x 7” and was made in the same way as the one above with the addition of some buttons.
I wasn’t sure how to go about dyeing these quilts and in the end decided to tray dye them.
Starting with the lightest colours first I used pipettes to apply the dye to the quilts.
This was lemon yellow and golden yellow.
I then added turquoise, jet black and finally navy.
First of all I have to say that these strong colours were a bit of a shock! I was expecting the black to blend with the yellows more than it did to give some greens but I soon realised that I should have dampened my fabric before I started so that the dyes would move around more. Needless to say, as I have since rinsed the fabrics out, the colours are far less strident but I will have to wait until tomorrow to see what they look like when they are dry. My first thought is that I will either overdye (maybe in a mix of magenta and orange as I do not have a warm red) or maybe do a little judicious discharging.
With some of the remaining dyes I set up a layered ‘bucket’ with various fabrics and, while there is a lot of green in these too (what did I expect?!) there are a couple of interesting pieces. Once they’re dry I will photograph them and put them on the blog.
I still get very confused about procedures when dyeing, probably because I really haven’t done a lot of it. Somehow (probably because I tend to use blues and yellow!) I always end up with a lot of green. I am thinking now I should have dampened my fabrics, mixed the dyes with a salt solution and then added the soda solution later. Maybe that would have worked better. I think the pre-soaking in soda ash/washing soda and drying probably works best with printing with thickened dyes. My colours tended to plop where I dropped them and not blend much whereas I would have liked them to have been a bit softer
Hopefully I’ll be able to photograph the results tomorrow.
11 comments:
I bet these will turn out to be lovely! What kind of dyes did you use?
It will be interesting to see the results. Are you going to Ruth's class at Art and Stitch? She does a lot of direct dyeing by painting the dyes onto the fabric... yet another technique!
It will be interesting to see the results. I always soak in soda ash first and have no problem with the dye spreading and blending although I don't usually dye on dry fabric.
Love your journal quilts, Julie, they're very delicate.
I have the same problem when I try to dye using this method. I usually paint straight onto dry non soaked fabric and let the colour bleed in stripes, works better for me.
Lovely to see u on my blog xxx
Looking forward to seeing the results ..love Jan xx
It will be interesting to see your results, and your challenge quilt is so different to mine! I love the journal quilt too! I tend to dye on wet soda ash soaked fabric.
They all look good to me Julie. I usually do dyeing with the instructions in one hand and lots of muttering under my breath about what to do next! Looking forward to seeing how they turned out. Hope your cold is getting better.
I am looking forward to see what your results are, the orange colours look just what we need in this weather. I didn't get around to snow dying either. I like to dye with wet fabric, adding the soda ash, salt and dye at the same time. I always end up with lime green too :)
very interesting you have been busy you must be feeling better I look forward to seeing them in the flesh
wow that looks good, you will have to let us all see the finished pieces. See you for Ruth Issett's class in February
Dying fabrics is always exciting because you never know quite how they will turn out.
I will be interested to see how they look once rinsed and dried.
Love your delicate quilt.x
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