Fun with Fabric...

Monday the 9th of November... where did this year go??  How could it be November already?  2020 has been the longest, shortest year ever.  On November 9th, Kate and I had signed up for an Adventures in Dyeing Fabric at Home class.  It was part of the Fiber Fest and was held on Zoom.

To prepare, we had to gather fabrics to dye, Tulip, and Dylon dyes from Amazon or our local Joann Fabrics shop.  We needed jars and bags, sticks to stir with, gloves, and dust masks.  Plastic to cover the tables and towels to catch any spills.  Marbles, clothespins, and rubber bands to help make interesting marks on the clothing, and our imaginations.

Those of you who were Flaming Roses and then later the OBX ladies may remember Tie-Dyeing tee-shirts.  We used dyes from Dharma Trading.  We had to soak the shirts in Soda Ash water and then dye the shirts followed by a rinse with Syntropol.  I do not know about the rest of you, but I still have my shirt and it is still as bright as the day we made them.  I was curious to see what this session of dyeing would teach us.

We set up in the garage.  In Alaska, if you have a garage, it had better be heated and mine is.  So we covered the appliance boxes with an old white quilt and set up a table, covered with a plastic tablecloth that was topped with an old towel.

There are 6 bottles of Tulip dye powder on the far area, my computer so we could Zoom ( Rob set up a Wifi extender so the Wifi would reach the garage), and a box of gloves.  On the nearby table are three jars of mixed dyes.  The mixed dyes are the Dylon powder... red, purple, and yellow.  We had Ziploc bags and the items to make designs in different ways in several places.

Kate was dyeing socks and scarves and other items that she had around the house.  I had purchased 12 white cotton bandanas to try my dyeing processes on.

Kerri Hamos was the instructor and she started us out with some information and then instruction.  These new dyeing powders no longer require the fabric to be soaked in the Soda Ash.  The Soda Ash is part of the powder and removes a step in the dyeing process.  She did say that red is the hardest color to dissolve. We mixed and mixed and mixed and I can still see on my fabrics where the red had not dissolved properly.  She also said that yellow needed to be mixed and stirred before each application.

The process that we used was to wet the fabric that we wanted to dye.  We then twisted, rubber-banded, folded, knotted, curled, and all manner of things to the material and placed it inside a Ziploc bag.  Then, using cups or squirt bottles (we eventually took the turquoise and the green dye bottles to add some other colors) we poured dyes on the items in the bags to see how each one will turn out.

These are a few of the bags that we have prepared for a period of rest before we begin the rinsing process.  After we completed the dyeing process the items have to stay in a closed container (mason jar, plastic tub, or Ziploc bag) for at least 4 hours or overnight.  It can even go for a couple of days if life gets in the way.  Then you glove up, twist the remaining liquid from the item, put it in water with either Sythropol or Blue Dawn dishwashing liquid.  I asked the instructor if one was better than the other and she said "no" that either one will set the dye.

This is Kate working on some of her many items.  She had collected many pieces that she planned on dying during this class.  You can see the turquoise and green squeeze bottles on the table.  This was later in the day after the online class had ended when she and I were just letting our creative juices flow.  Some of my bandana creations are in plastic bags on the table.

This was the top of the appliance boxes covered with the old quilt.  The other squeeze bottles from the collection of Tulip dyes are still attached to the six-pack that they shipped in from Amazon.  The unused bottles are purple, red, yellow, and orange.  With these dyes, you could make many different colors.

To keep things separated, Kate was piling her dyed items on the floor near the garage doors.  It was interesting to see all of the things that she was dying.  Socks seemed to be primary and I have seen some of her results and they are beautiful.  We did find that the Dylon dyes seemed more intense while the Tulip dyes seem more like ice cream and cotton candy color densities.  They are softer and more pastel.  Both are pretty.

Before Rob and Kate left to go home the next day, she wrung out and rinsed a couple of her things.  They were beautiful.  Did not have my camera handy... sorry about that.

Once Rob and Kate had left for home, I went into the garage and put all of my Ziploc bags onto one of the lids on an empty container.  I took it up to the kitchen where I have dual sinks.

I filled the sinks with warm water.  Then I carefully, with gloved hands, wrung the dyed items inside their individual bags.  Then I tried to put them into the two sinks based on colors... the darker colors on one side and the more pastel ones on the other.  I did the wringing process inside the Ziploc bags while inside a bigger garbage bag to keep any spillage from dying the countertop in the kitchen.

I had filled each side with warm water and a small dash of Blue Dawn dishwashing detergent.  I swished and swished and let things soak before swishing and swishing some more.  This is the darker, Dylon colors.

After a time, I drained the water and then refilled each sink with cleaner water.  A little more swishing, a little more soaking, and a final rinse before going through the wash cycle in my washing machine.  Then I ironed them.

These are most of the ones that I used the Dylon dyes on.  Most of them are of my two favorite colors from my Red Hat days.

This one I rolled loosely and deposited red and yellow in different amounts.  It created an interesting design.

On this one, I placed a larger, round pearl and twisted below it, and secured it with a rubber band.  In each corner, I twisted the material as tightly as I could and then tied the twist into a knot on all four corners.  I must not have tightened the upper corner as tightly as the others as there is not as much definition to the design.

This one I just rolled side to side.  It was not overly tight nor overly loose.  I did not use as much dye just to see how far it goes down into the roll.  Much more white space.

This was rolled from corner to corner. I folded it in half in the bag and soaked it with more dye than the one above.  I like that the colors really stayed more separated than I expected them to.

This was another rolled one that I kept light on the amount of dye.  There seemed to be more muddling on the one corner.  I can do a re-dye on this one if I want to!

I really liked this one.  I had different sized pearls to use, so I used many sizes.  The yellow one was actually a large one with a smaller one added right below.  I also used different size rubber banks and different amounts of tightness.  This one was then dyed with just swirls of the remaining fabric, flat in the Ziploc bag.

These are the final 6 of my day of dyeing.  See how the green and turquoise are more pastel??

This is another corner to corner roll.  This one, however, I rolled from the corner to the middle.  I then rolled it like a jelly roll with both ends in the middle.  I drizzled the colors just in the middle and then a different color to the outer rolls.  These colors muddled where they met and created an almost army green.

Another rolled from corner to corner.  I used just one color.  I gave it as much dye as I could.  I still did not see it soak through totally.  I like the waves in this one!

This one was another twist and then roll it into a jelly roll.  I took the colors and carefully drizzled the dyes into alternative rows across the felly roll.  This one has some really unique designs.  Another favorite.

I rolled this one.  Then I further twisted one half of the material.  Alternate colors were used.  These were from the squeeze bottles.  There is much more control from a squeeze bottle.  A nice combination of white, turquoise, and green.  These are the Tulip colors.

A half and half.  They merged in the middle without muddling.

This final one was fun to do and I will want to play with this one some more.  I just twisted the material in a variety of places.  It was not a large amount.  Then I flattened the twisted material.  I finally held the twists together with wooden clothespins.  Then I applied a little bit of each color that we used all over this as it lay flattened in the Ziploc bags,  The white spots appear where the clothespins crimped the fabric.

I think we are planning to do some more dyeing over the Thanksgiving weekend.  Kate has more things she wants to dye.  She had given me a couple of silk scarves to use, but I am saving them to do some alcohol/sharpie designing on them.  I have seen some YouTube videos on that technique.  I have some alcohol and a supply of colorful sharpies if I can remember where I stashed them.  So stay tuned for some more colorful designs.

I would be happy to help any of you who might want to try some of these techniques on clothing.  We could do a Zoom thing or a video meeting or just a call, and I could walk you through the step by steps.  Just let me know!!!