cotton candy

cotton candy
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

Yes, it really IS that bright.

purple and green party (sold)

purple and green party (sold)
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

I meant the greens and purples in this veil to be much deeper and more vibrant, so I was a bit disappointed by this outcome. But someone liked it enough to buy it, so why should I complain?

warm raspberry

warm rasberry
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

This turned out not at all as I expected, but I quite like it.

black and red shibori (sold)

black and red shibori (sold)
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

Sadly, this picture is not the greatest, but I did think this was an extremely cool veil. This was part of my first experiment with Jacquard's acid dyes, and I love the deep richness of the black.

I can't tell you how frustrated I am with Photoshop Elements. I bought it specifically for the Magic Extractor tool -- so I could float veil pictures on a solid background-- only to find that (a) it's not too smart unless the background is a vast contrast to the foreground, and (b) it's incredibly, incredibly slow on my Mac Mini. I have to wait several minutes just to find out that it did very poorly. Sigh.

five veils later

Not only did I complete my custom commission for the dance trio last night (and yes, redying in Azure, with 2x the dye, did give me a lovely royal blue), but Amira Jazel also bought two veils from me. "The Princess" is a very good customer of mine, and I was happy that she succumbed to the lure of my black-and-red arashi shibori veil. (Geez, I hope I have a picture of that one somewhere.) Innumerable people have picked up that veil and said, "Wow!" but nobody ever felt they had the costuming to go with it. Apparently she's got a black and red gypsy ensemble. I'm glad it has found a home at last. She bought a peacock blue solid while she was at it, too.

While I was waiting for the royal blue veil to "cook" on Saturday, I started fooling with the remaining green-with-turquoise-flaws veil. I finally decided that it would make an interesting arashi experiment. The wrapped-and-compressed process I have been using up until now hasn't involved much folding. This is because I wanted the overdye color to penetrate all the way to the inside layers. This time I did some semi-random triangular accordian folding on the 3yd piece before tying it to the cord. I'd like to overdye this with black acid dye. I have absolutely NO idea how this will turn out, but you can't just do the same old thing because you're afraid you will "ruin" something. And this will be a fun thing to do while I await the photo of Ayperi's new costume, because she needs a new veil too....

emerald green's split personality

You don't know until it's dry would probably make a good dyer's motivational poster. On Saturday I thought I had finished all three veils for the "Fly Away" gals' dance. On Sunday they were dry and I discovered two things:

1. They weren't nearly as deep in color as I had hoped. I wanted more vibrancy.
2. The emerald green veil had several turquoise spots on it! Aaaagh! It's not like I didn't stir the damn thing!

Out of curiosity I pulled out the emerald green veil I did a few months ago and looked at it under strong light. Oh no! It too has turquoise spots!

I can only conclude that when the silk develops an air bubble that causes it to sit above the level of the water in the dye, the turquoise component of the green dye is taking, but not the yellow portion. Well, this is a danger with a mixed dye... I just haven't run into it before. I dithered a bit, and then spoke to my Adored Husband, B. He suggested that I dye all new veils and keep the non-vibrant ones for stock, as they are perfectly nice by themselves, just not what I wanted for this project. I adopted this and re-dyed the Emerald one to even it out. This worked nicely; it's even -- but I wish the color was a little more blue and a little less yellow.

For the new batches, I am stepping up the amounts of dye in the baths and easing off a bit on the salt. The new Teal veil is already finished and has the notch more of intensity I was looking for. Next I'll do a new Royal Blue... though I think I do not have quite the right dye for that. I hope that making the color more intense makes it close enough.

Dyeing is a craft, not an exact science! I think I need the T-shirt for that one.

a series of veils

I got a commission last night not for one veil, but for a color series of veils. A local dance trio wants a set of veils plus extra yardage for an upcoming performance.

While they don't want fabulous multi-colored veils, they do want three different solids, and they want them to be different from each other, yet related. I find this a really interesting challenge--none should be noticeably darker or paler than the others (different tints or shades); none should be much grayer than the others (different tones); but they do need to be distinct, yet related, hues.

Their original idea for the three colors was not a bad one. It worked out to a scheme (yeah, I looked at the color wheel here here) where you are going around the color wheel skipping two colors at a time. But one veil was going to be a lot warmer than the other, and I thought it would really stand out, and they didn't like that aspect. So I suggested instead that they use an analogous scheme, and instead of that warm color, they chose a color right in between the other two.

I sure hope they turn out nicely! I like having happy customers...

trade secrets

A fellow (or rival, whichever) dyer of dance veils posted in a list today that she could dye a veil in an "old gold" color with a dark blue edge, with "flames" of the dark blue rising up into the old gold. I posted back that I would be curious to hear how she accomplishes this without getting green where the two meet, and she responded (humorously) that if she told me, she'd have to kill me.

Where, after all, does one draw the line? Paula Burch has an incredible website full of info for fabric dyers... did she make a list of some type and say: these things I will not divulge? Karen Brito of Entwinements, surely one of the best-known American shibori artists today, actually posted a photo tutorial of exactly how she makes her incredible pleated scarves. Could I make one based on her instructions, given the right material? Well, I could make... something. It sure wouldn't look like hers. I haven't got her incredible color sense or inspiration. That's obviously something you can't get by reading a web page.

If my rival/fellow dyer wishes to not share information with me, of course it's her right to do so. But it seems a bit much to withhold something that's probably just a mechanical technique, unless it's some deep secret she learned from a mentor. I guess I feel a little skeptical about it! I want to see one finished, because I don't know how you'd do this with dye. If you are painting, then sure, because you can put a resist between the colors. But dyeing? Seems to me there's gonna be some green in there somewhere.