Sunday, April 19, 2009

Dyeing Class

I'm taking a two day workshop with Ann Johnston. I've done a lot of dying in the past several years, but Ann uses a very different method that I am used to. Hers is a low water immersion with urea and soda ash. I have never been very successful in having more than one color in one piece of fabric and that is what I was interested in learning. These are just a few of the pieces I dyed today.



These three colors were dyed in the same little container. I used diluted solutions of red, yellow and green. Ann calls these "parfaits". They are actually lighter in person and rather yummy. If I hadn't been so tired tonight, I would have dragged out my tripod and got clearer pictures.




This fabric was bunched up and banded with rubber bands and dyed blue. After several minutes, I unwrapped it, banded it again and added red to the same container.



This is a color gradation, using the same color green, but with dilutions throughout.



This is another "parfait" with stronger colors. I know that I started with yellow in this one, then added green and red.

We brought all our dyed fabric home (I didn't show it all) and then had to wash it, best done in a washing machine. Well, guess what? My machine decided to pick today to DIE with all the half washed fabric in it. I had to haul it out and rinse and rinse and wash and wash and rinse and rinse BY HAND. I felt like a pioneer. Since my class is all day tomorrow, I 'll have to wait and see if I can get a repair man here on Tuesday.

3 comments:

Sherryl said...

Despite the archaic method of washing out, it looks like you had fun. I have used her book, Color by Accident and it is fun. I am taking a 5 day class from her at QSDS in June, but I think it is more funky stuff like printing with dye paste, etc. It is not a beginner class. I am looking forward to it. Please make sure you post results from tomorrows class!

Vivien Zepf said...

Oooo, Norma, these are luscious! I'm so sorry that your machine died; washing by hand probably took a little pleasure out of these beauties. But they are just lovely and I can't wait to see how you use them.

Susan Schrott, Artist said...

Norma....first the good news...your fabrics are lovely. Isn't is wonderful....I am a parfait addict. I just love having buckets of them going all at once and Anne's book is a great teaching tool. How wonderful for you that you get to learn from her in the flesh! On the other hand I am so sorry about your washing machine There is never a good time for a washing machine to die but certainly NOT when trying to rinse dyes. Are your arms sore from rinsing and rinsing and rinsing? I would suggest once your machine is up and running, you throw the batch in with some sythropal and give a once over. That way you don't have to worry about anything you might have missed.