Monday 26 January 2015

Still Dyeing

I needed some more threads for a couples of projects I am working on - so another wet afternoon was the perfect time to do this. I have used a variety of cotton and silk yarns including some silk and yak wool threads from Nepal- sold locally in Oakham which have a marvellous texture. The moss green threads in the centre of the photo are Yal wool and silk.
The large aqua bundle of differing threads took the dye well despite many of the threads having a mixed fire composition.  

I presoak the threads in a dilute soda ash solution ( 25g to 1 litre warm water) for an hour or so then drain off the soda ash before dropping concentrated dye pigments onto the threads. They 'cure' overnight then they are rinsed off until clear of dye.




One of my current pieces of work is this piece an impression of the incoming tide at  dawn over Blakeney Salt Marsh. The base is a loose weave linen which I dyed with procion. I then felted on dyed scrims and organzas to achieve the effect I wanted.  Now is the time for some machine couching and hand stitching - hence the thread dyeing!




Tuesday 13 January 2015

Trying out some new colours....

Wet and rainy day - just the time to try out some new colour dye pigments - I recently bought some different acid dyes from Landscape Dyes in colours I have not tried before - usually they are the shade I need to mix with my Procion dyes.  I used  Wattle - a rich gold, Sweet Pea, a warm pink and Kelp - a lovely grey green.   I have quite a bit of rayon silky ribbon tape about 5 mm wide which is super for embellishment and ribbon type embroidery - but procion doesn't work - acid dyes do so I had a short session dying them with the acid dyes in an old crock pot - works really well. I also used up the dye with other fibres, silk and cotton and although the cotton dyes a little lighter these dyes gave clear constant colour.