a thread from the edge: Made Ya Wait

Friday, October 8, 2010

Made Ya Wait

Welcome back to my dying post - and yes, I made you wait. It was only fair - after all, I had to wait 24 hours while the fabric sat in their red cup dye bath. Next step - take the fabric out of the dye bath and rinse out the excess dye solution. This can take some time - remember you have 30 cups of dye, not to mention the "extra" dye cups / pans. Once you wash out the excess dye you want to keep the fabric separate to prevent any possible cross-dying. My handy Ikea drying contraption comes in handy.

It's really an octopus dryer - but this poor guy is loaded down with all of this wet fabric - he could really use a couple of extra hands - - -

Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle - I've been "dying" to use this photo for weeks now! These "hands" are really French glove molds - interesting, eh?

O.K. - back to dying. Next step is a good, hot wash in the machine and then a soaking in the fabric softener.

Oh heavens - look at the colors of these threads - these were all of the frayed edges tangling up my fabric as it emerged from the washing machine - too pretty to throw out - they could have a future use. Do you like the colors???

I was going to make you wait until tomorrow to see the results but I decided to dangle a carrot. Remember - this is the photo from the ProChem website - these are the colors I should have achieved. Bear in mind - I do change up my process slightly as I noted yesterday - but nothing drastic that should truly alter the end result in terms of color.

Here they are - all stacked up - my colors are far darker than the sample, way more saturated. Different - and I like it. I much prefer the colors I achieved over the expected. Now this stacked view does not do justice to the beautiful mottling and crystallizing I achieved in my 30 gradation process - for that you need to check in tomorrow. And did I mention my shibori experiments - I used the excess dye to play with some shibori techniques and had amazing results - gotta wait!

I was busy this afternoon getting ready for weekend parties - made this delicious Brown Butter Pumpkin Cake with Brown Butter Cream Cheese Frosting and Candied Ginger Pecans - looks just like the one on the cover of Fine Living this month.