Thursday, July 15, 2010

Colouring my world

I woke up yesterday feeling like I simply could not keep up with all I need to do on a daily basis.  I planned to have a day out with a friend who is visiting from the UK and felt a bit overwhelmed.  Well in order to make things even worse I decided I simply had to dye some fabric - right away.  So first thing in the morning I soaked some fabric in soda ash and water.

I left it to soak for the day while I was out and when I arrived home I squeezed the excess liquid out of each piece and put them  into  plastic zip lock bags. I had some procion dye (powder) that Linda had given me so I mixed some up in a plastic jug with hot water.  I don't measue anything much and don't record what I have done.  This is not a problem as I don't want to repeat anything anyway.  Well, that's my excuse!!  As I mixed each colour I poured some onto the fabric in the bags.  Again, this was done in a fairly hapharzard way.  
Once I was happy with the colours I had produced I sealed up the bags, giving them a bit of a massage to distribute the colour.  This was done fairly gently as I didn't want to create an even distribution of colour.

These stayed in the basin overnight to ensure a reasonable depth of colour.
 This morning I took each piece of fabric out of the bags and rinsed under cold water until the water was clear.  This is the most time consuming part of the whole process as each piece needs to be thoroughly rinsed seperately .


Once that was done the pieces that were of similar colours i.e. reds, browns, oranges went into the washing machine and then into the dryer and finally ironed.

I was very pleased with the results - the fabric I used was some old calico curtain lining and some old sheet.  They are perfect for this sort of dying and take up the colour really well.  I also dyed some lace with the fabric.


So as you see, the colours are terrific and will be handy for crazy patchwork and the ironing and the rest of the housework is still waiting for me.!!!!  Best of all I have really enjoyed doing this.

7 comments:

Radka said...

Thank you for the tutorial, Dian. I will try to remember the plastic bag trick for future reference!

Linda said...

Dian, these colours are so rich and vibrant. It really doesn't take all that long to get it underway when you put your mind to it, does it.........LOL.... I love all the pieces you've dyed, and I think your progress photos are just excellent.

Margaret said...

You achieved a lot in a day and more so as it brightened our day.

Heather said...

Hello Dian - thanks for visiting my blog. There is nothing like hand dyed fabrics for giving a project a special quality - the colours you achieved are gorgeous. I haven't dyed any for ages but still have procion dyes and loads of space dyed threads I did years ago. Love those tiny bags and shoes on your earlier post. There is one thing you can be sure of - housework will always be there waiting for you!!

DIAN said...

Thanks for the comments - I do enjoy doing my own fabrics and dying the lace to match.
Heather & Margaret thanks for reading my blog and for your positive comments and yes the housework is still there.

Anonymous said...

Such beautiful colours Dianne. Hope you had a great day with your visitor too.

Jensters said...

Glad ive just seen this Dian as i have some of these dyes and didnt really know how to use this....so i can have a go now.....great colours x