Folly - Pt 2

To continue our adventures with ice dyeing, the next morning and with coffee in hand, we ventured  outside to check on our bundled treasures. There was actually ice on some of them but we felt it had batched long enough to get great color. 

The buckets you see in the background were parfait dyed with 3 layers of fabric, 3 different dyes and ice in between - great results.

First rinsing is long and arduous...

into the buckets and next stop the washing machine filled with cold water.

and a spectacular view while working.

Since the trays were now free, we dove right into batch # 2. These are colors we usually don't use so it was fun to try something new.

We all brought things to overdye or give new life to. Mary had this what she called "ugly" sweatshirt (it wasn't) but she overdyed it and now it is a beauty.

Kate overdyed this monoprint she did in black and white....

This was a piece of deconstructive screen printed fabric I had...not useable and now it is better I think... also from the same tray as fabric above. With so many trays and so much fabric, we started labeling the end of the trays with colors we used - kept us organized.

This was a piece of rusted fabric on white mercerized cotton. I overdyed it with grays and blue-grays.

Another t-shirt from Mary that turned out really nice.

This was some deconstructive printed fabric I had, liked....but thought it a little boring so that went into the bucket of soda ash for over-dyeing.

The afternoon was spent doing acid dyeing which works beautifully with animal fibers - silk and wool. It is one of my favorite techniques as it is fast and you get brilliant color. Kate rigged up her propane gas and a big pot to hold fabric.  To begin, the pot had measured water, salt and a drop of synthrapol and brought to a boil.

Meanwhile fabrics were soaking in a bucket of water with just a drop of synthrapol. The soaking only takes 5 - 10 minutes depending on the weight of the silk...it needs to be very wet - through and through. Again we had colored silk fabric for overdyeing as well as white silk. 

This dye needs to be used with boiling water and an acid fixative such as vinegar or citric acid crystals. My favorite approach is to crumple the silk and put it a nylon stocking, tied tightly at both ends. Once the water comes to a boil, the dye and acid are added, stirred for a few seconds and the fabric bundle dropped in. I boil it 10 mins, turn it over and another 10 mins. The fun thing about acid dyes is that they completely expend themselves and the remaining water is close to clear.

After I open the bundle, there can be many white areas on the silk....if there is still some color in the water, I quickly dip the fabric, swish it around to allow the white areas to get some color. Often this takes literally seconds so a careful watch is needed here. Here is a scarf of Kates -  came out beautiful

I had some very drab silk noil...kind of a grayish-olive green. Kate first pleated and tied it like a Shibori piece and boiled it in Teal blue - a very dark color. You can see the wonderful dark areas in the fabric. She still wanted more color; she scrunched it in a stocking and overdyed it in Teal again. It's pretty here but this photo doesn't do it justice.

Mary who is always working in wool likes to dye it using several colors. She started with procion mx and this wool which is a blend of rayon and wool took it well, but the top layer which was fuzz appeared whitish. It was the wool part of the fabric. Mary then dipped it quickly into a boiling pot of acid dye (Turkey Red), removed and rinsed to get the above results. So this is a 2 process fabric being that it is blended with part compatible with mx dyes and the other with acid dyes - an interesting and very successful approach.

More luscious silk scarves

and fabric. Both had been dyed in a stocking, removed and rearranged in another stocking and overdyed with another blue.

And another beautiful sunset....and one more day. Hooray!