A Good Day to Dye

alas poor butterfly

2009-07-03T19:38:00.003-06:00

Well, the technique I planned to use to create the mourning cloak butterfly - inspired veil is not going to work. I intended to use a shibori "capping" method to protect circular/oval areas of the veil, but the best way to draw up these areas accurately is by using a running stitch around them and pulling them up. I tried this on a sample of my veil fabric... while I was able to protect the area as planned, pulling up the stitches on that featherweight fabric damaged it considerably! Despite using quite a fine thread, there were obvious holes left behind. Yuck. So much for that plan.

I also played around more with the Colorhue dyes today, trying to see if I could get a reasonable black on silk. Their initial recommendation was 12-15 drops in a half cup of water. This turned out to be about 1/4t. For black I tried 1/2t, which gave me a sort of dark gray/blue color. I doubled again to 1 t. Still not a very black black -- a pleasant very dark blue/gray, but just not black. Now, supposing that I need to immerse a whole veil... that would probably take at least four cups of water at a bare minimum... with a little math that means 8t of the black dye would be needed to obtain a not quite black color. That's about 1 1/4 ounces per black dye bath.

Did I mention that the Colorhue dye is $30 for 8 ounces?

I believe I'll just be using up the rest of my sample set. It was a lovely idea, having an "instant" dye that requires no heat on silk, but... it just doesn't work quite well enough.

(And, incidentally, DO NOT SPILL this dye on anything you care about. It's very very hard to clean up.)

veil inspiration

2009-06-29T08:28:00.001-06:00

I want to make a veil out of this:

butterfly

coming off hiatus

2009-06-23T13:32:00.002-06:00

I haven't done much dye work lately due to a nasty cold I picked up -- got sick around June 8 and I'm still coughing "residually" now. It was a real energy killer because it was so hard to get any sleep with that cough. I did manage to make a few pieces of jewelry... nice to have a hobby that can be done whilst half-reclined on one's couch.

Of course this means I'm behind on dye work for my next vending opportunity -- Isidora Bushkovski will be teaching here in town at the end of July, and I've got a sales table. I need to make blue and "fire" veils madly since I was cleaned out of those in LaCrosse in April. I'm not going to try to both vend and take the workshop this year... it's just so hard to do that. Not to mention it means I have to have my husband's help... he's incredibly sweet about helping me, but I know he has other things to do with his time.

Well, since time is at a premium, it's time to try out those Colorhue "instant set" dyes. It's just me and the shibori pole in my spare time for a week or two... wish me luck.

half circle ombre 2

2009-06-06T19:37:00.001-06:00

half circle ombre 2
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

I'm still fooling around with these color-to-color (or as I think of them, bucket to bucket) ombre dyes. I'm doing the math and timing things carefully, but although they are pretty they are not quite as smooth as I'd like. I'd love to make gradations as smooth as the items here, but I'm not quite sure how.

shibori detail

2009-06-06T19:29:00.001-06:00

shibori detail
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

Here's just a corner of the silver & black veil I made for K. I won't post a photo of the whole thing... it's still on its way to her in the mail... but here's a little preview. I just love how it looks marbled.

how it all went

2009-05-15T13:03:00.002-06:00

It's been way too crazy around here to write an update!

Sales at the LaCrosse show were okay, but not spectacular. I sold six veils -- including every blue thing I had on the table. Some shows it's green; some shows it's purple... this show it was blue.

I've also gotten a two-veil commission out of that show; have to finish them up this weekend and pop them in the mail. In addition I need to finish my black-on-silver shibori piece, a commission/birthday present. Having a cold last weekend put me behind on just about everything.

And tomorrow... a garage sale. Scarves, wraps, and little odds and ends that haven't sold at a show will all go on a table next to the knickknacks and old videos, hoping to find a home.

down to the wire

2009-04-24T09:48:00.002-06:00

Well, I have around 20 veils to take to La Crosse this weekend. They're all ironed... but none got photographed. Boo! I wish there was a more time-efficient way to take the photos -- but to snap them all would take an entire evening, and I just did not have one to spare this week. Sunday was taken up with frenzied cleaning of the house, as friend KB came over to help out. (Then we collapsed and ate Indian food.) I had to put in some long days at work this week as well.

All things considered I'm just pleased I have enough stock to take north, but it really doesn't help my portfolio to dye-and-sell!

Here's hoping people will want to buy my pretties tomorrow....

veil dyeing vs. my back

2009-04-17T13:46:00.002-06:00

Well, my back wasn't too pleased about the combination of multiple ballroom classes last week PLUS a multi-hour bellydance workshop on Saturday PLUS a lot of sitting and driving related to Easter Sunday festivities. Monday it basically stiffened up and refused to move.

(And by the way... I don't really appreciate it when a dancer I have known for 10 minutes tells me to fix my dance posture to avoid back pain. Especially when she has not seen my dance posture and is not a doctor, nor does she play one on TV. Also especially when you're someone who is willing to wear a hipscarf out to a restaurant at lunch time. I think that's tacky.)

So anyway, I haven't done much dyeing this week. I did do a big 4yd pink-and-white number that I'm hoping Tzigane will buy from me in LaCrosse, as she mentioned she's looking for one. But other than that, no. I need to take a good inventory tonight and figure out what else is a "must-have" for the show; I'll do those and no more. Leaning over the sink is not a great thing right now.

conservation of buckets

2009-04-08T09:40:00.003-06:00

Phew. 13 veils done for the LaCrosse show.

Last night I got out the two curved veils I bought on spec. They aren't half-circles... they're more like half-ovals, because they're not quite wide enough. But I'm darned if I'm going to hem my own half circle veils... what a nightmare! So I'm working with what I have.

I wasn't quite sure what to do with them, actually. The Shibori Borealis half circles are gorgeous, but so complex, and Darlene's artistry is miles away from my skillz. I thought I would go for something much simpler. I dyed each veil in a bucket -- one a warm yellow color, one a medium blue shade. Then I set up a third bucket with a 2x strong fuchsia solution and simply dropped the lower 2/3 of the veils into it. After a while I pulled more of the veils out of the bucket and added more dye to make a 4x strong solution.

The veils don't show smooth absolutely perfect ombres -- you have to do more work to get those -- but they are a lovely example of basic color theory. The yellow veil looks exactly like a Tequila Sunrise cocktail, deepening into a pinkish orange edge. The blue veil reminds me of a morning glory with the deep velvety purple edge and blue inner area. Photos coming soon!

13 veils. Whew.

dye down the drain

2009-03-30T14:58:00.003-06:00

I mainly dye silk with Procion MX dyes and vinegar in low water immersion methods. I've developed my method over a couple of years now, and I continue to tweak it. Currently I'm trying to optimize my volume of dye solution and volume of powdered dye.

Dyeing sheer silk veils means that usual recommendations about how much dye and dye solution you need really do not apply. Most Procion MX dyes I work with have recommendations for when they are used with soda ash, not vinegar, for example, and per pound of fabric. When you convert from a pound of fabric down to the 10 grams of a silk veil, you get into silly-land. So over time I've calculated as small an amount of dye as seem reasonable to measure.

The thing is, my LWI dye baths do not exhaust well at all. There's still a lot of unused dye in them. Which means that rinsing takes forever. But I don't want to reduce my dye too much, because I want strong colors. So I'm continuing to fool around with amounts, but in the meantime I've had several veils that underwent 15 minutes of hand rinsing in the sink PLUS two full machine washes... and still they had excess dye. SO time consuming. SO wasteful of water. Argh.

I've completed six veils towards my goal of 18 by the end of April... that's not so bad... but my schedule is becoming quite hellish. Tonight is bellydance class; tomorrow I have a hair appointment; Wednesday I hope to dance with the local SCA ladies; Thursday night a ballroom dance lesson with my husband. Saturday may be very, very dye-stained.

A big gig looms

2009-03-23T11:28:00.003-06:00

I was asked to vend veils at a workshop coming up in LaCrosse, WI, at the end of April. (Sonya of Chicago is teaching.) Since I'm not able to vend at the local show on April 8, I decided to accept. Now it's a matter of getting enough veils dyed to take along! I've been far too busy with my day job to dye much recently. Now my calendar is spotted with little appointments: dye 2 veils here, dye 2 veils there. I've got six weeks... I need to average at least three a week to have a respectable table. Can it be done? I guess I'll find out -- within that same time frame I've got dance class, ballroom dance lessons, and more interminable overtime at work. Eeek!

People are wacky

2009-03-04T11:48:00.002-06:00

Before I tried dyeing anything, I read one set of instructions about doing it. Just one. That was actually good. Had I known how many different ways there are to apply dye, I might never had done it.

The people who I think are wacky are the people who don't even read ONE set of instructions, one book, one web page, one anything. They are the people who have questions in this format:

"I took an [X] and put it in a pot with some [Y]. It didn't work right. Why is that?"

Paula Burch gets these questions all the time. She is the most patient teacher in the universe. She explains carefully what they should have done. My response would look more like this:

Dear random idiot,

Why exactly did you think putting X in a pot with Y would work? Did you choose these things at random? Why do you seem surprised that you ended up with a mess? Did you even consider using a web search to get a tiny amount of information on what you planned to do? Not internet-savvy -- okay, how about the LIBRARY? Libraries are your friends. No library near you? How about a local art teacher or fabric store owner -- did you ask ANYBODY? No? Well, you go ask them now. Then come back. Tell me what they said. Maybe I'll have cooled off by then.

It doesn't bother me so much when the question is "I'd sure like to dye my [Z]. How would I do that?" Then at least we're not starting off with a ruined project. Then we can warn the unsuspecting. Then we can at least help. Afterwards... well, we are lucky there are Paula Burches in the world... diplomatic and patient dye mentors. Heavens.

Most recent question I was actually able to help somebody with:
"I'd like to dye my bedspread solid black."
What size?
"It's a queen."
Do you own any container at all that would hold a queen bedspread and enough water for it to swim freely in it?
"No."
Do you own your own washing machine?
"No. Er... this is a problem, isn't it?"
What's the bedspread made out of?
"Something shiny. It's thick and quilted."
Oh yes... this is a problem.
"Maybe I'll just buy a new one."

inheriting dyes

2009-02-20T12:29:00.003-06:00

One thing that's odd about fabric dyeing is how people who know you dye suddenly hand you boxes of their old dye supplies. "Here, I'm sure you'll use this before I will," they say. Jugs of Synthropol. Bags of urea or soda ash. Bottles with yellowed labels. So far I've been gifted with Jacquard acid dyes, green label silk dyes with some Dye Set, Createx Fiber Reactive Dyes (now discontinued, I understand)... as I reorganized my stash of "dye remnants" last night I was stunned to find I had two sets of Colorhue dyes -- the set I bought and the set someone gave me! Oops.

Guess I should start trying some of these out!

shoes?

2009-02-01T15:34:00.002-06:00

A friend of mine, about to be married, asked me to dye some shoes for her. Luckily these were not the dyeable-satin type (an experience I would have passed on!) but cotton eyelet ballet flats with rubber soles. She wanted them a pale turquoise with purple and deeper blue accents, and gave me a scarf as a guide.

My first worry was that the shoes might have a stain-resistant coating, but water dripped on them soaked right in rather than beading up. I mixed up some thickened urea water, used 25% as much dye as usual, and gingerly approached a dampened shoe with a sponge paint brush. I figured I'd have to work the dye into the shoe and that a lot of it would rinse out.

What a surprise! Those shoes were thirsty for dye! They sucked it up madly. And the color was turning out very bright, not at all as I expected. After coating them with dye, I painted over the shoes with soda ash solution, trying to give them a more "watercolor" appearance. This worked... pretty well. I wrapped each shoe in a plastic bag and put it in "the warm cupboard" to batch overnight.

But as I sat on the couch watching the late news, the color of the shoes really bothered me. 20 hours in that warm cupboard would leave them as bright as possible! Instead, I batched them a bare 2 hours and rinsed them out. Another problem surfaced... I couldn't really rinse them well in hot water after the cold rinse for fear of shrinking the shoes! Oops.

The shoes were still pretty bright when I turned them over to my friend, but she seemed satisfied with her emergency dye job. I just hope they don't bleed on her feet as she stands on the beach at the ceremony!

Wavelength for Sandra

2009-01-04T21:37:00.001-06:00

Wavelength for Sandra
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

Custom work for a local dancer. Flashy!

poi veil ombre

2008-12-01T17:37:00.001-06:00

poi veil ombre
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

And here is one of the resulting poi veils.

You may notice that this photo is a lot sharper than many of my previous dyecraft photos, and I can assure you the color is truer. I fixed the color of the photos by changing to a gray backdrop (which makes the camera less likely to overcompensate and overexpose) and by getting a daylight bulb for illumination.

However, I fixed the focus problem entirely accidentally. I zoomed in ever so slightly on this photo... and it came out incredibly crisp. Go figure!

color to color setup

2008-12-01T17:34:00.001-06:00

color to color
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

Okay, here is my highly sophisticated two bucket setup. Incidentally, have I recommended Mr. Clean Magic Erasers lately for dye cleanup?

color-to-color ombre dyeing

2008-11-26T12:33:00.002-06:00

In dyeing some silk for poi veils, I thought I would try to work on my color-to-color process of ombre dyeing. I was dyeing Procion MX from Dharma Trading and based my process and proportions on their Cold Batch instructions . Dharma also has some new ombre dye instructions on their site and I referred to them, but didn't follow them exactly.

I was working with 108" pieces of silk and I wished to dye them 1/2 purple, 1/3 blue, 1/6 aquamarine. I masked the 1/6 end with plastic and put the rest of the silk in the blue bath for 30 minutes.

1. Mixed up salt in the water with soda ash and urea right off the bat. Added calsolene oil. Pre-dissolved the dye for color number 1.

2. Let the silk sit in the bath 30 minutes before switching to next color. For my next colors, I created two dye baths and put the blue silk into the purple dye up to the 50% mark; I unmasked the other end and dropped the white silk into the aquamarine.

3. Rinsed cold, washed in Synthropol, washed very warm with milsoft.

I have a couple pictures, one of the setup, one of the results. 30 minutes was not long enough in these dye baths; I hoped for somewhat more vibrant shades. Next time I will try 45 minutes. Also, I did not stir them often enough. I was pretty tired that evening and just didn't have the energy. So the resulting colors are not quite as smooth and even as they could be. But they are rather pretty anyway and I hope will suit the dancer.

everything at once

2008-11-21T09:40:00.000-06:00

So, not only am I entering my busy-busy period at work, I've also got silk work piled up to the sky! An outstanding order that I must start on post-haste... silk for my Secret Habibi through the bhuz board... and now a custom order for the dancer who bought Echoes of Blue from me a few months back. It's a good thing the holiday weekend is coming soon!

the dyer votes

2008-11-08T19:01:00.001-06:00

the dyer votes
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

Well, I did vote, but this picture is a result of the usual dyer problem -- a split glove!

This weekend is a two-pronged (ar ar ar) attack on my dye backlog. Today was cotton things. I'm dyeing some baby clothes, a fun T-shirt for a rock n roll friend of mine... and because I had a lot of dye left over, a cotton nightgown for myself. Tomorrow... SILK!

consignment raqs!

2008-10-28T09:31:00.002-06:00

Ayperi is one of my best silk customers. She always has a new idea for costuming that she wants translated into silk. Recently she told me that she would be teaching at the Full Circle Bellydance Festival in northern Wisconsin, and asked whether I planned to vend there... too far away for me, so the answer was no. She suggested that she sell for me on consignment, so we made an agreement and I handed her about 15 veils to take along.

Imagine my surprise when she came back and revealed that she had sold ten veils! Wow. That's amazing. I felt kind of weird about sending my silk off into the world by itself (sniff, sniff, now you be good for Ayperi, pretty veils) but clearly it was a total success.

Aaaaannnnnd... now I've got almost no veil stock again. I'll be glad when Halloween is done. I've got a bunch of dye work that MUST get done very soon, and I've simply had no time.

Weird dyeing tips

2008-10-15T09:52:00.002-06:00

If you are tying something off with cotton string, and you pull too hard on it... why yes, you can just snap it! If it has to be pulled that tight, perhaps waxed thread or artificial sinew is a better choice.
Remember your simple machines. For example, if you need to dip fabric down into a vat, a pulley works great, even if it's just a piece of twine thrown over a ceiling brace with a clamp on the end to hold the fabric. And tie-dyeing on an inclined plane means that excess dye will run away from your fabric instead of sitting in a big puddle.
Do not underestimate the uses of a wooden dowel. You could wrap things on it. You could poke or stir with it. You could put it across the top of a dye vat and hang things from it.
Nothing works as well as a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to get a dye stain off a hard surface.
Glad Press 'n Seal is a fine thing for covering any dye project that needs it and isn't too big. Since it sticks to itself so nicely, but doesn't disintegrate when you pull it off, you get a nice tight disposable seal that isn't a big mess at the end.

dye hiatus

2008-09-29T13:51:00.001-06:00

Turns out that while it's important to have a functioning brain in order to dye, and nimble fingers are good too... what you really need is a working back! Yes, I screwed up my back. Nothing major, just your classic muscle spasms, but it's absolutely impossible to dye fabric when you back is unhappy. There's too much leaning over the sink and the workspace.

And of course I have a custom job pending and another about to burst upon me -- uh oh!

slight rant: education

2008-09-12T09:46:00.002-06:00

Why is it so difficult to find classes in dye techniques?

I often feel (as many craft/hobby dyers feel, I suspect) that I'm doing a lot of floundering to no purpose. Many techniques in dye work would be 100% more understandable if someone SHOWED you how, rather than having to read about it. But I can't find classes. I've checked the university, the technical school, local fabric shops... nothing. And when you search, it's hard to know where to look -- art department? sewing classes? I found out that the design classes at the UW are under the "School of Human Ecology" -- yeah, I needed to be psychic to figure that one out. Why is it so hard to find instruction on this topic?

Chasing Zebras in the melting pot

2008-08-29T17:02:00.002-06:00

After the Yousry Sharif show earlier this month, I had two inquiries about custom work. ZF, a lovely local dancer, wanted a veil, as she was about to take her first veil workshop. She wanted something reminiscent of my Jade Shibori veil, but in black and white.

To do black and white shibori I knew I would have to use a black acid dye bath in a pot on the stove. I carefully folded, wrapped, and tied a white veil and scrunched it down hard towards the end of one of my 6" PVC poles and tried it in the pot for fit. Looked okay... but I was skeptical. I filled the pot with plain water to the level I usually set my dye bath. Uh oh! All the silk would not be submerged. I took out the rack I was using to keep the pole off the bottom of the pot -- now it would fit. But the direct heat was going to be bad for the pole. I fudged. I put a bunch of metal clips on the bottom of the pole so the plastic wouldn't be right on the bottom.

For future reference: that doesn't work. By the time the pole came out, the PVC plastic was soft and had become discolored. The metal clips had made permanent impressions in the pole. What was worse, the veil was slightly discolored near that area.

ZF thought the discolorations were slight and actually rather liked the shadowy effect they had, so she was happy with the veil. I liked the way it looked like a natural pattern, like a zebra or a plant, rather than a geometric one. (I have no picture of it -- I hope one day to have a photo of ZF posing with it, actually.)

But note to self: find a shallower rack that fits in the canning pot!