Led by the ever patient Marian, a group of 10 of us chose two Procion MX dyes, in three different strengths. In week one, we dyed cotton fabric with one colour of dye in the three different strengths and then in week two we overdyed these pieces with the three different strengths of the second dye. Sounds very straightforward.
However, in week two, add on: chopping up and labelling the 9 dyed pieces from week one into 12 separate pieces each; confusions about labelling buckets; two power cuts during the workshop; water tanks draining of water and then no power available to pump the water up to them; realisation dawning that the labelling on some pieces did not show up with the darker dyes; scrambling to catch some tiny pieces before the disappeared down the drains; untangling some of the less tightly woven fabrics; dealing with the security guards telling us that the college was closing early because there was no power to the cctv cameras, and it all became a mad scramble at the end. We did all manage to swap a full set of colour swatches with each other, and as we have a note of everyone's dye recipes, we now have a collection of these glorious colour families.
Hot spice
Coffee in the deep forest
Summer pudding
Distant mountains
Best loved denims
Winter nights, Ooops, one piece missing here
Sooty cranberry
Cornish seas
Sage saffron
Morrocan ice
An added bonus was that 3 of my friends were on the same course, but we hardly had time to speak, we were so focussed on getting our buckets, spoons and labels correct.
Next, more over dyeing at Morley.
First, cotton twisted and dyed in the indigo bath, then over dyed using the tray-dyeing method with a mixed blue and a brown dye. This is a double length, so the photo only shows half.
Next a very long strip, twisted and dyed in the indigo bath, then accordion folded with CDs clamped between the folds, and a mixed Procion MX blue dye applied along the edges of the folds.
I love the immediacy of the indigo followed by the slower effect of the Procion MX dyes.
I love the dyed samples, they remind me of oakshott colours - and the names are fab!
ReplyDeleteI think we are hoping to do something like this at our next C&G evening - but since it is just one evening I doubt that we will have anything like the range of samples.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of indigo then procion dyeing. Very effective. One to try!
H
Judith told me about all the problems you had with the water and power cuts. I can imagine Marian getting quite shirty about being told to evacuate by the security guards!
ReplyDeleteStill, you managed to get some great sets of samples!