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| thick calico, brown dye |
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| mid navy blue |
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| yellow and butt yellow mixture of dye on thin calico - you can tell it's the thin calico as you can see the weave clearly |
I cut the calico into strips of about 5 inches wide by 25 inches long. I mixed up some yellow and butt yellow procion dyes together with salt and salt ash. The salt helps to reduce the solubility of the dye and the soda ash fixes the dye.
Procion dyes are used on organic fabrics including Cotton, Rayon, Silk, Jute, Wool, Leather, Wood, Paper, Viscose Rayon. Calico is an unbleached cotton with equal warp and weft weave.
I also washed the fabric first and dipped into the dye whilst wet. This is help the dye soak into the calico fabric. In my previous sampling, the calico fabric took longer to obtain as deep a colour as the cotton did.
I set up the dye in a bucket and then dipped the fabric into the dye and then immediately washed it to see what colour it was. It was very pale and I wanted a much deeper yellow colour.
I then used other colours including mid navy, brown and green. I am still sampling at this stage.
The calico fabric gave varying results. I dipped only some parts into the dye, and I also used a pipette to apply dye to where I wanted it.
I attempted to replicate the sun setting with the yellow dye. I left the calico in the dye for about 5 minutes as I wanted a very deep, almost orange colour. I then washed out the dye, and put it back into the dye for longer as I still hadn't achieved the result I was looking for. When I had achieved this result, I washed out the dye and quickly dipped the next part of the strip into the same dye as I wanted a more subtle look than the top part. I continued doing this, scrunching up the fabric to get different effects. I feel I have achieved a good range of colours from the yellow dye.
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| here i was trying to achieve the sun setting |
Reflection
What could I do better? Measure out my dye powder using a teaspoon. I have a tendency to sprinkle in what I fancy which on reflection is not useful for when I come to dye larger pieces for example if I achieve a wonderful colour that I want to use I may not be able to replicate it exactly if I haven't measured out the dye
Take more time - I am very much a "I want results now" which sometimes isn't helpful or productive. This can be a benefit in some circumstances when I need to get something done quickly but for precise work it's not beneficial
This approach didn't help today as I knocked a small amount of powder form dye onto the floor and then tried to get it up using wet cloth! I realised immediately what a bad idea that was as it spread further and further and in the end I had my footprints dyed and walking around the room. I did take responsibility and clean it up though
I also purchased some net fabric from the market stall for £1 a yard. It was white and I wanted to see how it would dye. Again cutting off a small strip I submerged the net into the brown dye and washed it straight afterwards. all the dye washed off. So I thought it may be because I didn't wash the fabric first so now it was washed, I submerged it again into the brown dye but again, on washing it, all the dye was removed. So I left it to soak in the dye for at least 5 minutes however it kept washing off. I eventually left it in the dye for about half an hour and then washed it off. The colour had changed very slightly from white to a cream colour. I then tried using disperse dye. Disperse dye has to be heated up. I soaked the fabric in the heated disperse dye and left it for a good 5 minutes. Then I washed it and again there was a subtle changed in colour.
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| procion dyed net |
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| the netting that I used disperse dye on - the colour is deeper than the procion dyed net |
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