My friend, Ruth Anne, once invited a group of us to her “barn” for a messy project. This time it was dyeing. Our first project was to dye 8 different gradations of black. All with the same dye, just in different saturations/strengths. Since black dye is made up from other colors, it will sometimes separate in some interesting ways. That’s what I was actually hoping for with mind. So, I didn’t mix it well. I just scrunched the fabric and stuck in a bag.
And these are the results. The photo doesn’t do it justice, since there are some dark blues and maroons in there. Cool, huh?
Next, we did shibori. After wrapping our fabric around poles, we applied the dye and left it to soak. We used things like cut off 2 liter bottles.
Ruth Anne was very organized. She had a big bucket for us to set our containers in. This held them upright and worked very well.
I clearly used too much dye and didn’t get the contrast I would have liked. Still very pretty, though.
Our final technique of the day was writing with a syringe and thickened dye. I got two very different results when I used two different fabrics. The one on the right is cotton, which worked well. The one on the left is something unknown. You might say that the colors look the same, but no. The blue-green lines on the left piece were supposed to be dark blue. And the pale greyed blue in the background is the same blue-green dye I later used on the right. Can you believe the difference?
We also tried other things with our thickened dye. Laura painted with hers.
And I tried some mono-printing.
I think some practice would help with this technique.
Any way you look at it, though, dyeing fabric is always fun! And I’ve never gotten anything truly ugly. There’s always a use for the resulting fabrics.
Ellen Lindner
