Dye Day

I didn't pick the best of days for dyeing, it was a little cooler today than the past couple of days but I soldiered on. I had bought some new dyes and instead of mixing my own colours I decided to go for mixed colours this time to have a play. I just did some very basic dyeing to see what the colours looked like but I did them at fifty percent which is what I usually do.

My first half metre on the right was scrunched into a tray and had a quarter cup of dye poured over it and left for 15 minutes and then another quarter cup of dye poured over and the colour was manipulated through the fabric so that there were no white patches. The second half metre had the other half cup poured on it, scrunched and then the fabrics were layed into a container and pressed firmly down so there would be a little bleeding.

The textures were interesting, lots of light and darks on the first pieces and on the second pieces I was surprised that there was very little bleeding of colour.

First up is a deep lime, as you can see the mix had settled and I got a rich spicy orange colour instead and interestingly it is two different tones plus darks and lights in the piece. The second piece has a hint of green in it which is interesting as it was placed on the top of the boysenberry and nothing on top of it.


The greens are more attractive than they appear. The mixed piece had been placed at the bottom of the tray with the blue on top of it but it is more of the Eggplant that shows than blue. I found it interesting how pale the second piece was too.


Brilliant blue - it probably would have been darker if I had it at full strength. The mixed piece was placed between the Green and Eggplant.


And lastly this is Boysenberry. I think I will play with adding some black to it and possibly some Eggplant. It is a nice red without being harsh.

For some reason when I blot from Picasa I can only get four photos and poor old Eggplant lost out on the transfer, it was nice too!

I am having another day tomorrow with a friend coming over to have a play for the first time. More fun and this time I have some large pieces of sheeting I will play with as I like to use the big pieces for my backings.

Now just to hope that all this decides to publish and not disappear into the blogger black hole.
More tomorrow. 

Spring

Well it is officially Spring and today is Father's Day but did the cats have to bring in a (live and screaming) rabbit for Ken's present? Losing it in the house was not a good start to the day either. I did discover it finally behind a large desk that was surrounded but lots of "stuff". Poor Ken finally managed to pull the rabbit out unscathed and took it outside to one of the paddocks and let it go - lucky rabbit.

The weather lately has been warming up (as it should) but we have been having cold winds coming off the sea (bitterly cold actually). A good time to get organised for lots of dyeing as I do all my dyeing outside (under a nice veranda). I am lucky to have a four metre bench to work on or is that lucky to have a husband who doesn't like to throw things out and came home with the bench from work one day and asked me if it could be useful. Now all I need is an outdoor sink with hot and cold water (I am planning that too but that is part of the long term plan).

On my way around taking photos of some of the areas that had been boggy mud and are now drying out I took this photo - I like the tractor tyre pattern and it is very three dimensional.




My other mud photos didn't quite come out as well but it was interesting to study the patterns and textures that were there. I am still trying to think how I can get tyre patterns onto fabric from one of our cars - I love the pattern it makes - next time it rains and there is some mud I will take a photo to keep as a record.

I really have been lazy as far as creativity goes - nothing has called my name so far. I really must get on as there are one or two small projects that won't take much to finish and it is always satisfying to cross something off the work to do list. And of course I do love my lists.