Yet More Dyeing

Since the previous post, I've had two more dye sessions.  I still have not fully used up the dye concentrates I mixed over four weeks ago, now.  The first session was aimed at making grays.  I made four yards, I think, in four separate bins.  They were created using (1) plain jet black (2 yards), (2) Jet black plus Fuschia, (3) Jet Black plus medium blue.  They came out more mottled than I was hoping.  I decided that I was just not getting the soda ash worked through the fabric adequately in the small boxes.

So yesterday's batch was done in the bigger Sterlite boxes.  I had to scavenge some from fabric storage, but they can go back when I'm done.  I decided to again use the layered low immersion system.  I like getting three gradations of the same color.  It's fairly easy.   I didn't have colors in mind right off, so I looked at the stash, and said, what do I most need.  My notes on a scrap of paper said,
"Light Orange, Yellow/brown, and Reddish Gray."  Here's a little overview of the process.

 Here's the "dye studio" AKA play-doh Table AKA pingpong table.  I just lay out an old shower curtain on the floor, pull out as many bins as I need, and have at it.  The sink is about 20 feet away, so I bring over bins of rinse water for my gloves and tools, clean water to mix dye concentrates from, and one of soda ash solution.

Here's "light orange."  Hmm.  Dye definitely didn't lose any strength since  I mixed it on Jan. 28th.   This was  pure golden yellow with a quarter teaspoon of fuschia.

The next attempt was for  yellow/brown.  Not too far off  from my aim.  This was pure golden yellow with about  a quarter teaspoon of blue.

With all the yellow dye solution used up in the first two bins, I had red and blue and a desire for gray.  I thought that if I used enough of the red and blue  it would make something almost gray/black.  But it seemed instead to make a really dark purple, so I decided I needed black, and mixed up a pure mash of one teaspoon with a small amount of water, and added it in there..... No, I really DON'T like planning and predicting.  I really like winging it.  It looked dark enough when it was wet... but I have learned not to count on anything until it's washed and dried.  I love the suspense!

Using the Ann Johnson via Lisa Call multi-layer method, I  smoosh the first batch, hit it with soda ash, then add the next layer.  In this batch I only had six yards left so the first run of each bin was a yard, the remaining two were 1/2 yards.  Should have gone the other way, as this was closer to the color I wanted.

The second layer here was also much lighter.

There was SO MUCH dye in this bin, the last two layers didn't get close to soaking it up, so I threw in a random fat quarter of beige fabric to see what difference using non-PFD fabric would make.

 I forgot to take pictures of the bins with the third layers in them, but they didn't look too much different than the second layer.  Here are the resulting fabrics all washed and ironed.

 As I've read in Lisa's descriptions, "red goes first."  She talks about how the upper layer of something that started out red can end up green...   I didn't have anything that dramatic, but you can see how that very very dark purple mash ended up being magenta-ish on the first piece, purple-ish on the second and blue-gray for the last two.  At least I got something gray.

It was interesting how the orange and pea-soup-baby-poop colors were so different on the first pieces, but they went back toward pure yellow to the point where I honestly don't know which of the two light yellow pieces came out of which batch.