Jen and Esther's Dyeing Day

 

 

The first photo is of Esther who was finishing her Year 12 Art final assessment piece. She created a mixed ink-print book with a mixed media cover. She is putting burlap and twine on black cardboard for the front cover.

I wanted to do some dyeing before we move house for a new rug I have in mind. As you can see in the photo's I didn't have a lot of room to work with the stove inside the chimney (not for much longer!!).

It's nearly impossible to pour anything into a pot when cooking. Anyway, I made a 'dip dye' yellow and a 'dump dye' yellow-orangey-pinkish wool.

Winnie-cat demanded her hot pack and blanket, she was cold, right in the middle of applying dye to the wool. She has a great sense of timing!

I'm happy with the way the wool turned out and have plans for more... I don't think I would have tried this if it hadn't been for Joy who helped me with my first batch of dyeing some time ago. Thanks Joy!.

Hope you all enjoy Strath.

Shibori Dyeing

I have discovered a new dyeing method and I love it. Shibori Dyeing.
Shibori is a Japanese term for methods of dyeing cloth by binding, stitching, folding, twisting, and compressing, like tie dyeing. Actually it is tie dyeing but the method originated in Japan.

I have done two quick samples, well maybe not so quick, and not because I needed the wool but because I wanted to try it. I used the Arashi process, this is is the Japanese term for “storm” and it’s also known as the pole-wrapping technique. It starts by wrapping fabric around a plastic PVC pipe. Once the fabric is wrapped, tie a piece of twine into a double knot at the base of the pipe. Like the picture on the right and you keep pushing the wool together and tying, until you get to the end, making folds, thus you will have resisted areas where the dye doesn't penetrate.

The dye is then painted on. I used tan wool and dyed it with onion skin dye with some brown added

Here are the results:

Not as successful as I would have liked but not too bad for a first effort. I couldn't find any instructions on what to do with the wool after the dye was applied so I cooked it for a while. That probably wasn't such a good idea as the PVC pipe the fabric was wrapped around distorted in the boiling water. Nevertheless it worked, only the pipe was binned, not to be used again.
I also made too many wraps and the dye didn't penetrate to the inner layers, so I cut that bit off and re-did it with a darker dye. 
Here are some links you may like to have a look at:

Laverne Zabielski shibori dyeing/ 1
Laverne Zabielski shibori dyeing/ 2
Laverne Zabielski Sibori dyeing / 3

Mixing Dyes from Primary Colours

Have you been interested in mixing primary dyes to get secondary and tertiary colours, and didn't quite know how to go about it?
If you are like me [I'm a bit of a scrooge and have only invested in the three primary colours plus black so far].
I would like to have a ready stock of colours made up so I can mix them according to a recipe [loosely] or use alone.
Here is a website to learn how to do that. I love it and now have a stock of colours ready and waiting, whenever I want them.
http://beemiceelf.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/tutorial-mixing-dyes.html

You can either use them as they are or mix them together to get more colours. If you make up a stock of black in the same way you can add these in tiny amounts to get shades. How good is that? :)

I Blame Joy for Introducing Me To Dyeing

Started the new rug. It's quite long, maybe close to 2 metres? Based on a Uzbekistan historic embroidery (from a book I've had for years).
Below are the wools I've been dyeing lately. It's as much fun doing it and rolling it up as it is using it. Yummy! Cheers Joy!! Look what you've started!