Primrose Corner

A spread of candy-like colour

If I said that dyeing fabric is easy and straighforward I’d probably be lying! If I claimed to have this dyeing obssession completely nailed I’d probably have my fingers crossed behind my back. How do people do this for a living? Do they age prematurely? There seems to be so many variables and so much unpredictability I mean what’s a girl supposed to do?

I was using Procion dyes with a medium weave calico. It was PFD - (prepared for dyeing just in case you haven’t encountered that term before) but I washed it anyway. I ironed it and I don’t do that without there being a real need. Strangely, (I’d ironed it for goodness sake!) I twisted, folded and scrunched the squares because I wanted a little bit of patterning across the fabric.

It’s such an exciting process all that anticipation…….

Red, yellow and blue dye baths(?) were straightforward because I was just using the neat colours. and I love the results. The yellow is lemon yellow.

It’s not a colour I like very much and you can’t see much patterning across the fabric but I wanted a yellow and this is it.

The blue and magenta red also worked well enough.

Magenta

Blue

… and look at these gorgeous threads!
One is a braided linen and the flatter looking yarn is a woven cotton.

I’m now thinking about getting myself a couching foot for my sewing machine just so that I can use them ……well pretty threads anyway! Advice is welcome.

Mixing…… oh boy! I was dyeing in plastic bags so I didn’t add the cloth to the bag until I mixed the colour I wanted (Does that sound as if I’m in control ?) I tested the colour on kitchen towel and all looked good. This is the orange ……
This is a fine boucle linen yarn and the orange is just slightly darker on the ‘lumpy’ bits.

… and the orange threads. Pleased with these.

Here’s my experiment with purple……..

What do you think - more sort of raspberry coloured isn’t it. Try number two. I think I’d call this purple

…. and look at these lovely marks. It’s almost marbled with colour.

It was between the red, the raspberry and the purple that I suddently twigged that I needed to keep some notes because my little brain couldn’t remember exactly what I’d put in the orignal mess mix (that was a bit Freudian!) after 24 hours had passed by.

With renewed scientific vigour I moved onto green surely this is just blue + yellow? Well… yes of course it is but just look at this!!!!

You can’t even tell it has any colour unless you put it next to something very pale such as white. It’s hard to believe there was any dye in the bag at all.

But look at this thread …. just look at it.

It’s lovely. It’s a twisted linen thread and it’s taken on a beautifully delicate variegation. (See there was dye in that bag! How could you doubt me!)

Green number two - I resorted to tearing up old sheets (retired cot sheets - so hardly used) at this point. But the disppointment….. what colour would you call that apart from horrible?

It has a strange blue tinge and almost blobs of yellow on it - whatever went wrong? There’s no way that it’s green. Back to the drawing board.

Green was definately giving me the ‘evilies’ as my son would say. Green and I have definately had a bit of a row. We may never speak again. That won’t work though I NEED green to get this activity done. Think………

Next attempt…… smaller bag (from the Co-op this time. The Waitrose ones kept leaking. That’s it I’ll blame them for my lack of success.)

Same fabric, same basic chemicals, slightly adjusted colour mix, tiny drop of washing up liquid and a teaspoon of Calgon (We have very hard water here and I thought the washing up liquid might make the mixture actually mix. It bubbled interestingly anyway.). Tested it with the kitchen roll and it looked like a gorgeous emerald green the kind of green a leprechaun would be proud of and feel at home with.
And look……

it’s not emerald green but it’s pretty, sort of forest green in the early part of the year. (Increasing poetic descriptions = relief )

Now for a bit of space dyeing…..

It’s a beautiful, sunny day just the opportunity for a little bit of fabric dyeing.

Take a pile of white fabric, chopped up into fat quarters, plastic bags

…. and a heap of different yarns.

Step 1 - Turn the utility room into a laboratory

Step 2 - Mix up the dyes.

Handy jam jar collection and salvaged plastic box lids for trays. Notice the marks to aid accurate ‘ingredient’ measuring for the short sighted.

I need red, blue and yellow and I need to mix a green, orange and a purple. Deep breath, summon up courage and continue.

Step 3 - Measure out the dyes into the plastic bags. Test the colour on pieces of kitchen towel.

Should everything resemble ‘brown’? Add a little bit of this and that. Question “Is that orange?, What d’ you think?” …. “Are you sure that looks like purple?”

Step 4 - Add the salt, the soda ash and the water.

Step 5 - Mix (Wobble it around.) together in a plastic bag.

Step 6 - Add aforementioned fabric

Calico, quilters muslin and some silk. Some scrunched, some twisted up, some folded. (Why did I iron them first?)

Step 7 - Add the yarns

Linen boucle, cotton chenille and wool.

Now wait and wait annnnnd wait …….. twenty-four hours !!!!!! Really?

The blue bag leaked I don’t believe it - re-bag the contents. Dangerous operation but I survived more or less clean.

Little bags of colourful promise!

I know I don’t absolutely need to wait that long, but some do say you get better results if you do, so who am I to argue. Anyway, I’ll wait patiently (yeah, right!) and see what happens.

Connect with your inner child.

Why the rose? No real reason - it’s just beautiful. It’s a really old variety of moss rose, sadly it only flowers once in a season. There’s none of this coaxing it to perform twice by chopping its heads off. So, we just have to enjoy it when it graces us with its prescence. Beautiful perfume too - but you’ll have to imagine that for yourself.

I’m romping wading working my way through an activity for the City and Guilds Patchwork course I’m studying. (I can’t say that without smiling. If you’ve ever read any Terry Pratchett books you know what I mean. Brilliant!)

I started off this acitivity thinking ‘Yep, I know exactly what this means!’ but I’ve been surprised. Basically, I’m supposed to be collecting pictures of ‘items’ with analogous colour schemes, making a collage using just the colours and writing a few words about how you respond to the colours. So, is it warm or fresh or energetic, you know the kind of thing.

I’ve not found it that easy to find pictures like this - always the way isn’t when you really start looking for something - there aren’t any. Of the ones I have found, making collages of just the colours involved was fun (think ripping up paper, bits of fabric and glue and generally making a mess) and then I noticed something.

When I was happily describing the colours as fresh, spring like etc I realised just how uninteresting bits of flat colour are when compared with the picture of the actual thing. I’m not sure I’m explaining myself very well. It’s as if it’s the shape, the form is as much part of the response you make to a colour scheme as the colour. Therefore, (big deductive leap, for me) it must follow that the quilting lines, patterns that you sew onto quilts must be at least or even more important as an element of any quilted article as the colour.

I’ve spared you my descriptions!

You already knew that didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me? You know it always takes time for things to sink in. I know I get there in the end but even so!

And then…. there was the difference it made when a colour was neighbours with another colour. I’m thinking yellow with greens and then the same yellow with reds and oranges. I think I always did know this but it was quite startling to see it quite like this.

I’m feeling a bit like a child with new toy.

I think I need a new sewing project to experiment with … ummh.

I wonder what my tutor will think! (ooh!) I hate that waiting bit between submitting work and getting it back. (She’s very quick.) Too much like school, except no one throws anything at you.

I’m dyeing a colour wheel next….. can’t wait.