I finished rebuilding my second piece from the Working in a Series series. This is the one that I really disliked. I like it much better now. It was necessary to make it slightly bigger than the others in the series, but I am happy to break rules, if the piece improves. Sorry for the lighting discrepancies.
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| "Before" version |
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| After revisions |
On Wednesday night I made my first stab at dying fabric. I did three layers of Magenta, which turned out fairly well. Last night, I tried more color mixing and produced several purples, as well as a mustard and a reddish rust. These pieces are currently soaking in the washer, but it was clear when I rinsed them out in the basement this morning, that they would be at least somewhat mottled. Actually they are not too bad, now that they've been washed and dried. Maybe too mottled for Nancy, though.
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| Purples have been through the dryer. Orange and yellow still wet. |
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| Purples, close up. |
The approach I have been taking is to read different books and blogs and websites, then just 'have at it." I'm thinking the mottling is due to either not mixing up the dye powder enough, not mixing the two colors of dye solution together enough before putting them in/on the fabric, or not fully distributing the soda ash mixture over the fabric.
The first batch I wet the fabric in plain water first, then added the dye mix, then added soda ash after a 5-15 minute soak. This time I mixed a tub of soda ash and soaked six yards of fabric in it, but I don't think I sloshed it around enough because there was too much fabric and not enough solution to really slosh.
Well... I decided that I wanted to learn this by doing, not by slavishly following recipes and rules. And I am. There is nothing wrong with mottled fabric, unless you're going to a Nancy Crow workshop!
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