Monday, September 2, 2013

Whispering in Color.... Low Immersion Dyeing, Avocado Dyeing, Resist Dyeing...

Spent the better part of last week in my little dye studio in the garage...

 Submerging, immersing, folding, squishing, painting, and resisting everything in sight.

I had wonderful results on three weights of cheese cloth....

Producing both vivid (with procion) and muted (with avocado and walnuts) colors.
Have several jars of this currently curing in the sun
wherein I used purple cabbage, beets and pomegranate for color.


This light airy weave is my favorite.




These are all naturally achieved colors with the exception of the
rust colored sample.  That was procion.


Avocado and walnuts produced wonderful results
on muslin and linen, but particularly silk noil.
These photos do not nearly capture the beautiful shades
of pink, taupe and tan achieved.




Walnut dye using flour paste resist worked 
fantastic on muslin and kona cotton.



flour paste crackle resist on cotton...

produced beautiful veins.




and also produced nice stencil results.



I was quite pleased that even the tiny little script detail
was nearly legible using a thicker flour paste mixture.



I so LOVE how these pine trees came out.
One of these will most definitely find it's way into 
my personal symbols slow cloth I have been working on
over at Spirit Cloth.  I will be posting an update on that piece shortly.


These bubbles were produced using Cleanline Resist.  
I kinda like this one.


This Leaf print was achieved by simply painting
fig tree leaves with kelp thickened procion dye and pressing.
I can only imagine how beautiful they
will be with the addition of hand stitching.



A  bit of shibori play (much more of this to come,
as I have pieces stitched, folded, twisted and clamped waiting to 
go into the indigo vat I am creating.)


And finally, a few cotton scraps low immersion dyed by scrunching up 
and placing them in a plastic ziplock bag and drizzling
two colors randomly and scrunching some more.
Left the plastic bags in the sun for an entire day.

I kept a notebook detailing fabrics, temperatures, mordant (if any), resist method and time periods.  Very simple, really.  And I honestly can say that I  am not disappointed in any of the trials.

I have things soaking, cooking, drying and mordanting all over the house. It is a fascinating process - dyeing.  I'm a bit of a mad scientist at heart.  Throwing and mixing different things into different pots to see what yields. 

It is so rewarding to use these pieces of cloth in my own work.  






10 comments:

Chyfey said...

What a great way to spend a week,lucky you....

Mo Crow said...

wow what a great post thank you for sharing Cathie!

The Idaho Beauty said...

Have never dyed with anything but the procion dyes, have only minimally experimented with resists. Lovely results, especially the resists. That's on my list of must try now that I have dye supplies again. I can just envision the mad scientist at work, you! But in rather a calm and delightful manor. Glad you got such a good week of play in, love your results. Any tinting of the Corgis? ;-)

jeanne hewell-chambers said...

these are beautiful, and i can see the fun - it shines right through. me, i'm not much of a dyer (seems too complicated). i am, however, quite the stain-maker.

JennyPennyPoppy said...

All of your dyed cloths, resists and prints look fabulous! I've done just a bit of dyeing but haven't tried any resists yet. Hope to though.

Doris said...

Your dying results a just wonderful. I´m just learning about dying with procion. I love brilliant colors.

Cathie said...

I've been tempted - but haven't tinted them yet! Gizmo would love fabulous with an indigo beard!

Jeanne Turner McBrayer said...

Your dyed fabrics are spectacular!

Teresa said...

Beautiful results. Looks like you had a great time.

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