New Fabric
Last night I overdyed some fabric from last week and added in a few more yards. I think between the 2 dye sessions I dyed about 70 yards of fabric. It’s all pressed and folded and ready to make some new work.
I love having a pile of brand new colors waiting for me. I find I have a million ideas about how I can use them. Every dye session is different because I don’t use recipes. I do control what colors I make but not with exact precision and a lot of time when I mix some of my dyes the results are rather unexpected. Pulling the newly washed fabric out of the dryer is like getting a wonderful gift.
I have today and tomorrow off work so I’ll have lots of time in my studio to make new work and finish up old stuff. I’m most excited. I finished up the dyeing and cleaned up my studio this morning so now I’m ready to start designing and piecing new work with all those yummy new colors.
Some color from my gardens this morning…
Posted by Lisa in: Images
Kristin La Flamme said,
July 13, 2006 @ 11:06 am
Yummm. Love those rich browns and that shot of pink and cyan looks enticing :-) Enjoy your studio time!
Lisa Call said,
July 13, 2006 @ 10:27 pm
Thanks Kristin - I got 2 new quilts designed today. Tomorrow on to sewing.
Cathy Kleeman said,
July 14, 2006 @ 4:19 am
Beautiful colors — but where is all the red?
Lisa Call said,
July 14, 2006 @ 5:02 am
Everyone check out Cathy’s website http://www.cathykleeman.com. She is the master of red so of course she noticed this!
I have to admit I didn’t even mix up any reds this time (I used the basic bright orange and premixed browns - I think havana brown and camel this time - that I modified with blues, yellows and black. ). The pinks are from some leftover dye from last summer.
shan said,
July 14, 2006 @ 5:54 am
I love the photo image of all the fabric together–looks like an art piece in itself. Beautiful colors.
Our growing seasons must be similar. I have small green tomatoes and my rasberries are just now ripe as well.
Patty Altier said,
July 14, 2006 @ 6:41 am
Beautiful fabric! Good greif, 70 yards is a lot of dyeing! I always have trouble getting brown. My Havana brown always comes out green and a brown dye color called Hot Chocolate comes out flesh colored. Not bad colors but not what I was aiming for! What is the color of brown MX dye you used? Maybe I just didn’t use enough dye. Sounds like an excuse to go into my dye studio - ok, its my laundry room - and dye some fabric this weekend!
Lisa Call said,
July 14, 2006 @ 9:07 am
Thanks Shan - I have a zillion baby tomatoes. But I have very few raspberries - just the ones that are growing on last years canes - so maybe 1 or 2 a day and the birds and squirrels seem to beat me to them. The new berries on the new canes won’t come for another month and then I’ll have more than I know what to do with so I freeze them for pies and smoothies all year. Maybe we have different types of berries because I suspect we do have a similar growing season - you are quite a bit further north but we are higher up so it evens out. Although you have way better cherries!
Lisa Call said,
July 14, 2006 @ 9:08 am
Patty - I checked these were ProChem’s MX colors havana brown and camel (with splashes of other colors - I can’t not mix!).
Try adding salt to your mixture - I think the low water immersion dyeing doesn’t really work as well as it claims it does. So now I always dump some salt in with my soda ash and I get much better colors. I was never able to get black to be black until I started doing this. I think the salt forces the dye out of the water and into the fabric. Or at least that seems reasonable.
I also use more soda ash than the recipe in Ann Johnston’s book - I don’t actually measure but I do use a lot more than what she says. We have pretty hard water in Colorado so it’s harder to get saturated colors than with soft water. I sometimes overdye some pieces to get more saturated colors.
And I’ve found that setting the fabric out in the hot sun can really help also. So I don’t dye in the winter any more as I don’t think I can get the stuff hot enough.
Patty Altier said,
July 15, 2006 @ 9:26 am
Lisa, Thanks for the hints. I will try using the extra salt and soda ash even though I have soft water. I let you know how the fabric comes out. I also don’t remember which black MX I used last, but when I was trying to get gray it came out lilac!
cher said,
July 21, 2006 @ 6:47 pm
those are yummy colors..looking forward to seeing them made up in your new quilts…