Monday, July 27, 2015

Colors and colors

I was thinking of titling this, what a mess.  But considering how much I have stuffed into a small place it isn't bad.  This is just (most of) my dye.  I won't show you where I stash my stencils and other items.  And that shelf over there and....

For one of the art fairs I applied to they wanted a picture of your work area.  I assume it was to make sure you actually made the art yourself rather then buying and reselling.  Everything I offer started out plain white and I turned it colors.


Saturday, July 25, 2015

Roar


 Careful, or I'll bite your tail.  Not like I can grab it, darn these short arms....


Friday, July 24, 2015

Black and brown

I'm not going to make a comment about shades of gray.  Black is a tough color to dye.  You have to use a lot of dye to get it dark, but it still frequently will not be pure black.  The scarf is just two colors, black and brown.  But because I clamped it so the dye couldn't get to part of it the dye separated some giving shades to it.  And the brown looks almost metallic.  Steam set dye on silk


Thursday, July 23, 2015

Meow

After a while it is hard to remember what you've posted about.  But I like my leopard design so I'm not worried if I've posted it before.


Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Colored salt

I had a picture in a post long ago how the salt used to make patterns in the dye holds on to the color, giving me colored salt.  Rather than throwing it away every time I reuse it, keeping the colors in separate bowls.  I wanted to see if I could have the color on the salt go back on to a scarf.

First is a pic of the dry salt in a bowl and some of it sprinkled on a scarf


After sprinkling the rest of the salt on the scarf I misted it thoroughly to rinse the dye onto the scarf.  Here you can see the color did migrate onto the scarf.  The salt didn't have much color left on it.


And here are two finished scarves after being steamed and ironed.  Very pretty, I think.  The one on the left I used both blue and purple salt so the colors are mixed.



But now I can't do it again until I do more 'regular' salted ones since I don't have precolored salt.  Hmmm, I wonder how colorful cake sugar sprinkles would work....  But those are such small bits.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

More dye powder oddness.

Similar to a previous post, this dye powder doesn't look much like the final color.  Forest Green this time.  The blue powder in it will normally be the last to dissolve.  And the last picture a finished product.



Monday, July 20, 2015

What color is it really?

It is interesting how some dye powders look in jar are very different from how they look on fabric since they're made up of a mix of different colors.  All of the pictures below are of Palamino Gold. 

The first one is the dye powder right out of the jar, the second with a little water starting to dissolve it. 

The third one is of the dregs after most of the powder has dissolved and been poured off.  Fuchsia can be a bit of a challenge to get properly dissolved.  Warmer water helps.  But then you have to let the dye mix cool some or it will soften the soy wax on the shirt.

The last pic is of a finished shirt.  I have no idea why it is upside down. I even tried to turn the pic.  Oh well.