Some People Dye Eggs for Easter. . .

Posted by Deborah - 18/04/10 at 10:04 am

I happen to dye fabric. Now that the weather has been consistently about 70 degrees lately I have been able to work in my garden and dye fabric (though not at the same time :) ).  I dye what I think I will need for the summer and winter months when it is just too hot or too cold to be bothered.  Pollen has slowed me down a bit (had to move the operation inside) but I have still managed to dye about 30 yards of fabric over the last couple of weeks.  I have been using Kona pfd (a 50% off coupon bought me a bolt from JoAnn’s and then I orderd a 35 yd bolt from Dharma).  I have also been dyeing Essex  linen which is linen cotton blend.  The Kona takes the dye well.  It s a bit stiffer than the print cloth I often use but I I like the hand for what I am doing.  The essex linen dyes beautifully but dyes consistently lighter than the Kona. It has a very soft hand with a nice washed out look that I like for quilts, dolls and even summer skirts and bags.

My Technique

My technique of fabric dyeing has evolved from a number of sources on the web and from books.  I like Robin’s flat dyeing technique for solids but it wasn’t working for me because I could not stand outside breathing in the pollen.  I will us this technique for more decorative effects on fabric but I think I will stick with my big dish and refrigerator tubs for solids.  When I use the tubs I am squishing and massaging the dye into the fabric.  It’s quite soothing really.  For the ins and outs of this technique see Melanie.

Color Recipes

Like everyone else I use Fuchsia, turquoise and lemon yellow as my primaries to dye an additional color wheel.  For variation I play with endless combinations of  primary and secondary colors to build my palette.  My trusty color wheel is never very far.

I do keep a notebook with notes of what I did.  Sometimes I get distracted and wonderful accidents (and horrible mistakes! happen).  I record these too.

Dye Notebook @ DeborahGraysonStudios

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 18th, 2010 at 10:37 am and is filed under Fabric, hand dyed. The entry is tagged under , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Some People Dye Eggs for Easter. . .”

  1. Natasha Jerich says:
    May 21st, 2010 at 2:29 am

    Howdy there,Fantastic article dude! i’m Tired of using RSS feeds and do you use twitter?so i can follow you there:D.
    PS:Have you considered putting video to the blog to keep the readers more entertained?I think it works., Natasha Jerich

  2. Deborah says:
    May 26th, 2010 at 8:29 pm

    Thanks for your response. I have considered video and have plans to do some short ones this summer. I have thought about twitter. I have just been taking my time to get there :) . For now please join me on Facebook if you haven’t already : ). Thanks again!

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