Dye a Rainbow Instructions

Dye a Rainbow Instructions

2 responses

9 10 2010
Lin Bradley (17:34:13) :

Hi Cecile,

I attended your Dyeing Session at the June Textile Art Festival Brisbane and have 36 beautiful fat eighths which I hope to put into a quilt to show them off.

I have just downloaded your Dye a Rainbow Instructions as I didn’t make many notes during the class. I got a bit mixed up and confused.

I have a few queries based on the differences of my memory of the class and the abovementioned instructions. When you get time, perhaps you could clarify them for me –

(a) Is it OK to soak the washed fabric in the soda ash solution BEFORE putting it in the dye cups as we did in class? Does it make much difference?e

(b) In class, I believe we used 3 teaspoons of dye powder to 1 cup of water to make the basic dye stock. Was this because we made up 36 cups of dye and not 12? ie – after the 12 triangle cups were made up we then used the diluted mixture to make up the two other tints/shades? one light, one dark.

(c) I have forgotten how many teaspoons of mixture we put into each cup. Was it one teaspoon of mix with one cup of water for the light tint? and

(d) presuming this is correct, the same for the dark shade with the addition of black made up with – 3 teaspoons black dye to 1 cup water = basic stock with 3 teaspoons of black stock stirred into each cup?

I hope I haven’t confused you! Actually, writing it down has helped me to get the sequencing straight in my head, it’s the amounts that I am unsure of.

Am looking forward to the Brisbane Craft Show and to seeing you there.

Best wishes.

Lin
Lin Bradley – lin27bra45@westnet.com.au

Reply
13 10 2010
uniquestitching (08:13:30) :

Hi Lin
sorry to take a little while to respond.

Soaking the fabric in the soda ash first is fine. The general rule is as long as, at some time, the fabric, the mordant (soda ash solution) and the dye are in the same place at the same time, your dyeing will work. For small samples such as what we did, the timeing will make little to no difference. However, on larger pieces, with multi colours, adding the soda ash first will mean that the colour starts to set as soon as it makes contact with the soaked fabric. You get a slightly more distinct seperation of colours than if you allow two or more colours to blend naturally and then add the soda ash.

Yes, we made a strong batch in the class because we wanted it to go much further and I wanted you to have very distinctly different fabrics when you washed them at home. You can add as much or as little dye as you want. The less dye powder per cup of water, the lighter the colour, especially when you treat it as a stock and start divying it up into more cups. Recipes always vary, and sometimes I am a bit inconsistent, as the mood strikes me. Just make sure you record what you do so you can repeat it again or change it for next time.

For the tints, we put half a teaspoon of the dye stock into a seperate cup and added a cup of water – very light colours. For the straight colours and the shades, we divided the cup of straight dye in half and added the diluted black. I think I got you to add a teaspoon of black to each cup, but it could have been more. Again, it depends on how much darker you want your shades to go. You might remember we talked about the fact that you could make a series of shades with different amounts of black being added. I range from half a teaspoon of black per cup of stock through to 3 teaspoons of black per cup of stock in the type of exercises we did.

Please come by next week and say hello. Let me know if you have further questions or if my answers have added to the confusion
Cecile

Reply

Leave a comment