Monday, January 19, 2009

Day 2 of Dying Adventure

On this day I used acid dyes to immerse several items. I was dying silk, silk velvet, silk ribbon and various laces. I used anywhere from one to four cups of almost boiling water, then added the dye and a little vinegar and the dying victims! I let them sit for 30 minutes and then rinsed in warm water. The silks dyed marvelously (no surprise since I believe acid dyes are geared for silk), but some of the laces came up in unexpected colors.
I started with the golds because I didn't have to mix dyes to make the colors for those. (I had 2 different gold powders, a black, ecru, and the primary colors. The golds were find if not a bit vibrant(!) so I ventured on to color mixing. The green turned out exactly how I wanted it to. I was so thrilled! There were a couple of rogue laces that decide to go more of a lilac color than green - go figure! Then I decided to go for a soft peach and came up with the vibrant reds and pink above. Not exactly what I wanted, but they will go nicely in a Valentines quilt I'm going to do one of these days! I saved all the dyes and today I think I will split the dyes into different pots and add a little black or water to get varying hues of the same colors. I may try some blues and purples if time permits! And I'm going to modify those reds to get some peach! Did I tell you I was having fun?!

2 comments:

Thelma said...

So much fun you are having. They look wonderful!

Anonymous said...

After two days of dying, it looks like you have enough of everything to do some fabulous creating for quite a while! Some lovely colors, too.