Round Robin Step 2

I've been experimenting with shibori so I could add it to my dyeing skills. As mentioned before I belong to a Yahoo Surface Design Group and we are working on a Round Robin Surface Design. Here is Michelle Lasker's fabric after I added my arashi shibori to her yellow and orange tie dyed fabric. You can still see the original design, because the shibori pattern is a very subtle green. I was afraid to alter her fabric, but finally got the nerve. The color I used is "Avocado" from Dharma Procion Fiber Reactive Dyes. I tested the color on a piece of PFD I had, and then went for it. I was a little disappointed that her fabric didn't seem to take the dye as well. as my sample, but I still think the pattern is good. I'm showing a detail and the whole fabric in the pictures. I like what the avocado color did to the orange and red she started with. I hope she will like it too.

Surface Design Challenge

I belong to a Surface Design Group on Yahoo, and they have a challenge that I found interesting. The challenge  was open to members and limited to 4 people per group. Each group was to hand dye a piece of fabric and then send it to the next person in the group who will apply some sort of surface design or embellishment. The next embellishment can be painting, more dyeing, stitching, stamping, foiling... you get the idea. Then it is passed to the next person in the group until it gets back to the owner. This is called a Round Robin, and this is the first time I have participated.

In the end, the owner divides her piece when it has gone around into Fat Quarters and each member of the group gets a piece. I love the concept!

I've been holding on to several yards of Radiance PDF which is 45% silk and 55% cotton. I have been waiting for warmer weather to dye it, but last time it was warm, was, well, I can't remember. So I gave it a try last night and did some immersion dyeing with Dharma's Fiber Reactive Dye #47 Chartreuse. I dyed two yards, and stepped them into the bath to see what gradation I would get. I actually liked the second piece that didn't get as much dye, but they both turned out very nice.

I'm sending it off today - which wouldn't have been possible if it hadn't been for my friend Lisa. I misplaced my Soda Ash, and everyone knows you can't dye fabric without it. Any way, it was fun and I love petting my new fabric.

Here are some pictures. It is very hard to capture the sheen, when laying flat, so I have it folded and you can see the depth of the fabric and sheen. It really looks like silk. Love depth of color in the piece. It is very rich looking. I can't wait to see what will be done when I get this back.

Low Water Immersion Dyeing

I took a workshop on Saturday with Sharon Weltner on Low Water Immersion Dyeing. It was great! I discovered that I didn't take enough fabric, but Sharon was kind enough to let me buy some. The PDF fabric that I used had brought had the best result. We used three different techniques. The first was dyeing in a plastic bag. This was pretty easy - water the fabric, measure the dye and add it to the fabric, then add pot ash as a dye activator. We let the sample sit for one hour and then rinsed (two colds and one hot) for our result. Final rinse bath included Synthrapol. We used ProChem's MX dyes.

The second technique used three pieces of fabric to make gradations. Again using the same materials, we put the first in the bucket, added dye and pot ash. Added the second fabric, and more dye and pot ash and repeated this one more time. Each layer used a different amount of dye. Mine wasn't truly a gradation since I used both green and yellow, but I liked the result.

The third technique was similar to the second, except it was called Parfait Dyeing. This time you use a light color, second layer is a medium different color and lastly a dark different color. The three dyes mix somewhat together, but not completely. I chose a warm palette of brown, coral and yellow. I ended up with brownish red, coral, brown and gold and orange gold fabric.

Sharon suggested that we take notes about the formula, but since we didn't have the same dye base at home, this would be hard to duplicate. In any event we learned a lot and I would like to do this again. The PDF fabric yielded the best results since the white of the fabric, where where the dye wasn't activated by the pot ash remained sort of white and faded to color where the activator worked. It reminded me of tie-dyed fabric, but without the ties.