Dyeing: How ‘Bout Some Orange?

I’ve been wanting to dye some luscious terra cotta and rust colored fabrics, but wasn’t having good luck with my usual primary mixtures. Therefore, I bought some “Strong Orange” and set about learning what it would do.

First, I  made swatches of it mixed with each of my other colors. Yes, it took A WHILE. But, I felt like I really needed to understand the color and what I could expect from it.

I mixed about 70 of these combinations!

My efforts paid off, though, when I made this piece. It was the first thing I did with strong orange and the colors turned out pretty much exactly as I wanted. I made the two stencils with newspaper. That worked well and I like them a lot. Maybe I’ll make more durable ones next time.

I really love this fabric. (Except, I should have left more white – again.)

With my newfound orange knowledge I made a large oval stencil and got to work on the next piece. I was careful to consider how these colors would look DRY. (A very easy thing to forget or misjudge.)

This is what it eventually looked like, wet. (Yay, I did a little better leaving some white!)

And here it is dry. I’m very happy with it.

I think Strong Orange and I are going to get along well.

Ellen Lindner