Kristin Shields Quiltmaker

Dye Series Part 8- The Last, Indigo

You knew indigo would show up sooner or later, didn't you?  That's a pile of stuff that was dipped in the vat without any shibori techniques (plus a little sample of something overdyed in walnut).  I decided I needed to use the itajime shapes on indigo and thought this is probably the best use for them.  There is no need to let the shapes stay clamped on unless you are going to re-dip the pieces.  So, I made moon after moon, and some of Jude's butterflies.  I over dyed commercial cloth and dyed over thrift store linen.  All around, a very good time!

The orange is a thrift store shirt overdyed with indigo.  Makes nice spooky sorts of moons.

I did a lot of quarter moons too.

What fun.  Indigo is always an experiment for me, but now that I've got all these shapes, they'll start showing up in some slow cloth pieces over time.

I hope you enjoyed the Dye Series.  Maybe you noticed the page in the header.  You can click there to see all the posts in one spot and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

My October has been terribly busy with a full week Rosalie Dace workshop last week, a guild workshop on Tuesday, community quilts day on Wednesday, and today is homecoming.  My son has been chosen as a Homecoming Duke so it's a busy weekend.  Next week what may be my last days of class with Gwen Marston since she will be retiring next year.  Meanwhile I've got hundreds of photos from activities this summer that I wanted to post.  Don't worry, I won't go overboard with that.  This blog has really been in the background these last few months, but I hope to get back to more regular posting in a few weeks.  

I hope you are having a wonderful autumn.  It's my favorite time of year and leaves are starting to turn.  We are set to get our first real rain of the season this weekend.  Hopefully, that will keep down the dust and smoke that have gotten a little out hand this year.  See you soon!

Dye Series Part 7- Itajime Shibori

Recently, Jude, has been indigo dyeing with plexiglass resists and she got me going on that as well.  I decided to use up some of my leftover Procion dye for this at first.  This process requires a bit more planning than the indigo and I wasn't sure the best process for the soda ash fixing.  Jude pointed me to an Etsy shop where I could get my shapes and a few days later I was on my way!  By this time, the weather had turned a bit, so I set up in the laundry room.

On this project I used some coordinating fat quarters that I won.  They were not in a colorway I particularly liked, but I planned to make a baby sized community quilt with the end result.  I bought circles, squares and triangles in various sizes, but decided to just use the circles for this experiment.

I folded each fat quarter into quarters, clamped it and for some I presoaked in the soda ash, for others I did the soda ash soak afterwards.

Here are some in the dye bath.  For those that I presoaked in soda ash, I let them sit in the dye for the full 3 hours.  For those that I didn't presoak, I put them in the dye bath for about 30 minutes and then did a soda ash soak.

These photos, above and below, are of some fat quarters that were not presoaked.  These went into the dye first, for 30 minutes, then I put them in the soda ash solution.  I was curious about how it would work if I took off the clamps right away.  Would the color move in and spoil the resist?  It turned out that it did move in a bit, but not enough to bother me.  This meant that I could use my clamps on another piece sooner than if they sat in the dye for 3 hours.

These are the finished fat quarters.  You can see that with the fabric folded in fourths, the inside layers didn't dye as well, but then again, you get more variation that way and that is always interesting to me.

Here's the finished quilt.  This was such an easy project and taught me a lot about what I could do.  I did some easy stitch in the ditch quilting and then quilted around each circle.  This makes me very happy and I hope it does the same for a special baby in my community!

Dye Series Part 6- A Rainbow and some Thread

After doing all the other dyeing, I still had plenty of dye left over, so I decided to make a rainbow, but these are mixed colors in each cup.  One fat quarter of Kona Cotton and one fat eighth of linen in each cup.  I mixed various yellows, or reds, or oranges, etc, until I got a color I liked.  

I also did some thread dyeing.  This is DMC embroidery floss.  Red and green are my favorites for pops of color.

When washed and dryed I always have a challenging mangle of thread to sort out.  I still haven't gotten to these, but they are ready to use!  On the left is some thread that I dyed in  my walnut pot.  I didn't let them sit for long, so they are pretty light brown.  I still have a couple more tricks up my sleeve, so I'll be back soon.

Dye Series Part 5- Single Colors & Cinnamon Buns

On my second dye day I decided to be strict and make single dye colors.  I planned to be able to identify the different colors after washing and drying and make myself a color chart.  That didn't work out so well.  I can identify most of them, but not all.  Part of the problem is that I used different fabrics in each cup.  Oh well, there will be another day to try that again.  Above are the Dharma raw silk and Kona cotton.  This time I decided to try some folding shibori and see what I could get.  Each fabric was folded and twisted into the "cinnamon buns" you see above.

I did keep the colors and cups ordered so I could make sure I didn't duplicate colors.  I wish now that I could have marked the fabrics with the color names, but would have needed to do that before the presoak.

I did take photos of all the colors this way.  Color changes after drying, but you can get the general idea like this.  These are some of my new favorite colors.

Mmmm, I really, really love goldfinch!

Also pomegranate!

Here are those colors after drying (all with Kona cotton).  Nice palette!

This is what the cinnamon buns end up looking like.  Fun!  There's still more to come.  I'll be back soon.

Dye Series Part 4- Color Gradations

Here's a little more about color gradations.  The basic method was mentioned in Part 2.  First of all, I like to use larger pieces of fabric for this.  Usually 1/2 yds or full yds.  The fabric should be presoaked in the soda ash.  Then arrange your fabric in a large container such as a dishpan or basin.  You can try lots of ways to arrange, including pleating.  I just sort of sqooshed it around until it seemed good.

When you choose colors to use, you can do the obvious color wheel combinations (red-blue, blue-yellow, yellow-red) or choose something more subtle like the blue-purple.

I like this brown-blue version.

Scrabble likes the combos too.  Lots of inspiration here!  By the way, the ironing is done!  Yay!  Time to get on with some other activities now.  More dye posts to come!

Dye Series Part 3- Ice Dyeing

After the Quilting Arts June/July 2012 issue came out with an ice dyeing article, this method has been getting lots of blog time.  Ice dyeing and snow dyeing can lead to very interesting dye results so I had to try it!  In this method you are using the dye powders as is, so be sure to use your safety mask, close the dye container as soon as you are done with it and wash utensils asap.  I layered my presoaked (in soda ash) fabric in the cups in three or four layers.  As you add each layer of fabric, you put on a layer of ice and a layer of dye powder- but only about 1/8-1/4 teaspoon total of dye each time.  I used 3 or 4 colors in each layer.

The article says to let the whole thing sit for 24 hours.  I'm a very impatient person and mine only sat for the day- maybe 8 hours before I washed them out.  

I did get some interesting results and I will definitely try this again, but I needed more ice.  Some parts of the fabric barely got wet at all and I'm not a fan of the big white areas.  I really like the one on the left above which makes me thing of pansies in the garden.

In this batch, I like the middle one a lot.  As I said, next time I'd use more ice and maybe even let them sit the full 24 hours!  Next up, more color gradations.  See you soon!

Dye Series Part 2- Basic Dye Method

Are you ready to dye?

Continued from Part 1.  The fabric needs to be pre-soaked for 30 minutes in a soda ash solution.  I keep my solution in a 5 gallon bucket with lid because it can be re-used over and over.  I find the buckets and lids at Ace Hardware and it's totally worth the extra money.  It's liquid tight and gives me lots of peace of mind.  I have one for soda ash, one for my walnut dye and one for my indigo dye. To make the soda ash solution, dissolve 9T of soda ash in 1 gallon of warm water.  I usually have several gallons of this in the bucket so that I can soak lots of fabric at once.  Be aware that soda ash is hard on silk fabrics, so I don't let those soak for any longer than necessary.  You can buy soda ash from Dharma Trading Co., or you can get it at a hardware or pool store.  It's also known as sodium carbonate.

So, soak those precut fabrics for 30 minutes while you get set up. You need to have lots of containers.  I used to use ziploc bags, but got smarter and now do my dyeing in reused yogurt containers and some old plastic bins, metal bowls and plastic dishpans.  These clear containers below came from the Thai restaurant.  Perfect!  I love doing double duty with stuff like this.  They are reused over and over for dyeing.

I also like to have a bowl of clean water for rinsing as I go along, my measuring cup and spoons (dedicated to dyeing, of course), extra bowls and rags nearby for messes.  My table is also covered with a black trash bag, though I've thought about getting some painter's plastic.  Someday I might try Robin Ferrier's method of flat dyeing.  Have you seen that?

Whenever I dye, I usually start out all scientific-like, measuring carefully and maybe even keeping notes.  By the end of the dye session my inner mad scientist has come out and things can get a little crazy. 

Here's the scientific way for dyeing a fat quarter in a cup:

• measure 2T of dye concentrate in to your measuring cup, add water to 1/4 cup and pour over the fabric in the dye cup. Squish a bit to make sure it's wet all the way through.  The more you manipulate the fabric, the less variation in pattern you will get.  Although, I've noticed with silks that there is less variation over all no matter what I do.

You can do the parfait syle, which is going on in those cups up above:

• measure 2T of dye concentrate in your meausuring cup, add water to equal 1 cup.  Pour over 1 fat quarter in the dye cup.  After 5-10 minutes, add another fat quarter and smoosh down.  After another 5-10 minutes, add your third fat quarter and smoosh down.  You will get three values of your color in one cup.

After a while though I get tired of measuring and start to eyeball the amount of dye.  I also know that I can use varying amounts of dye to get various values.  Sometimes I'll use 1 T in a 1/4 of water.  Sometimes I'll use 1 teaspoon in 1/4 c of water.  It's fun to experiment!

In between colors, I usually just rinse the cup and spoon in the water bowl.  I am not trying to get any specific colors so I don't mind if colors mix.  The happy accidents are what makes this fun.  Actually, perfect is boring anyway.  We are here because we like to be creative!

Another fun thing to do is color gradations.  You would want to mix up enough dye in one color to add to one end of the fabric and the same amount of another color to add to the other end.  I often do this with 1/2 yards of fabric, so I use about 1 cup of water total and 1-2 T of dye in each half cup for either end.  Smoosh the fabric around a bit to mix it up and let it sit with all the rest.

Once you've made your various dye cups, they need to sit for at least 3 hours.  Again, if you have silk in there, you probably shouldn't let them sit for days, though until the following morning is probably fine.  I like to rinse the cups and fabrics in my laundry sink, then I put all the fabric in the washer at once with some synthropol. You can get that at Dharma, but all my local quilt stores carry it as well.  Synthrapol has chemicals that bind to the excess dye in the washer and rinse it away from the fabric.  I don't have any color transfer so I can wash all colors together.  

One of the prettiest sights in the world!    And, I'm still ironing!  More to come.

Dye Series Part 1- Dye Preparation

I started this post a couple of days ago.  The post disappeared somehow and due to a faulty smoke alarm sleep deprived haze, I couldn't get up the energy to pursue it.  We had two nights of the alarms and I was just a mess on Tuesday.  All is better now and I have my dye photos in order, so look for these posts over the coming week.  Hopefully one a day until I'm done, however long that takes.

Last weekend was still very nice out, warm enough to be in our back yard which doesn't get a whole lot of sun this time of year.  I took advantage of two free days to set up the dye studio outside and went to town.  First of all I made my dye concentrates.  I got smarter this year.  I clearly marked each bottle with the dye name and decided to make the dyes directly in the bottles.  That was so much easier than doing it in a cup and transferring to the bottle.  

I use procion dyes by Dharma Trading Co.  I also buy a lot of my prepared for dye fabric there.  In addition, I buy linen clothing at thrift stores and overdye that.  Any fabric that is not prepared for dye or hasn't been washed many times needs to be washed to remove the sizing.  

My favorite fabrics from Dharma include:

• kona cotton
• combed cotton lawn
• habotai silk (8mm, 10mm and 12mm)
• essex linen/cotton blend
• heavier cotton gauze
• pineapple fiber
• raw silk
• dupion silk
• hemp silk blend
• hemp silk charmeuse

Those last few fabrics are specialties that I don't buy much of. In fact the hemp silk blends are very, very expensive.  I got one yard of each to try.  The charmeuse is amazing!  I have only dyed cotton, linen, silk, pineapple and hemp fibers with procion.  The silk works pretty well with the procion, though you might get more vibrant colors with a dye made just for silk.  I like that I can just throw it in with everything else and not worry about it.  This was the first time I tried the pineapple fiber.  Not sure whether I like it that much yet.  One neat thing about dyeing different kinds of fibers is that each type takes up the dye differently, so it's a simple way to get different shades of the same color.

Dye recipe:

• 1/2 c hot/warm water
• 1 T urea (Dharma sells this)
• 1 T dye powder (except 2 T for black)

So, here's the process.  I did this assembly line style.  All your dye equipment must be dedicated to dye use.  Never reuse the supplies in your kitchen!  Also, while I know there are folks who dye in their kitchens, and I did that once, I don't do it anymore.  If I couldn't be outside, I would do it in the garage or the laundry room.

First I dissolved urea in the bottles with the water. Speaking of bottles, I'm using glass bottles here, but everytime I do that, I have visions of glass shattering and dye going everywhere.  In addition to that, the metal caps of the Juice Squeeze bottle are hard on my hands.  I think Odwalla juice bottles might be just the thing so I may stock up on them over the coming year.  

Just shake it around and it dissolves easily.  The urea is a wetting agent which helps the dye dissolve better in the small amount of water that I use.  It is optional and I've dyed without it, but I think prepping the dyes is easier with it.

My bottles are all ready with the urea/water mixture.  Ready for dye.

Next, get your mask, measuring spoon and funnel (see below) ready.  Always, always use a mask with open dye containers.  I also have a damp cloth that I'm working on.  As the dye dust settles from the air, it lands on the cloth and sticks.  This cloth is actually very pretty right now!  I use a lot of our household rags when I dye. It's kind of fun to see the colorful cloths when I'm dusting!  When I decided to make the dyes directly in the bottles, I realized I needed funnels, but didn't know where the one is that we have.  I made some paper funnels and they worked for several bottles in a row before becoming too wet or dirty to continue.  It worked in a pinch, but I found some really cute little aluminum funnels at Ace Hardware the other day and will use them for the next dye day.

The advantage of creating the dye directly in the bottle is that you can shake the heck out of it to mix.  Mixing in the cup with a spoon takes forever.  This is much quicker and saves a step.  Works for me!

My bucket of color is all ready to go. Dyes need to be used up fairly soon unless you have a dedicated dye fridge.  I don't, so that's why I made up the 1/2 cup of water recipe.  A few weeks ago I actually did use up some leftover dye that had been sitting for many months.  I got some interesting and unpredictable results.  Some colors do fine, some don't, especially reds.

In the past I've doubled the recipe to 1 cup of water and have had way too much dye to deal with.  This was still a lot of dye considering I have 16 colors here.  There were a few colors I didn't do this time, but I also got some great new colors this year that I really love.  Pomegranate and Goldfinch are two stand outs.  Also, the greens- Chartreuse, Lime Squeeze and Avocado are really nice.  I started out a few years ago with just the three primaries and added to that over time when I discovered how much I like dyeing.  I also had trouble creating nice browns and purples. The dye would often separate.  Now, I have some purples and browns and Better Black which is a nice one.

Now, to prepare the fabric.  I like to rip my fabric into fat quarters, except for a few larger pieces of Kona cotton for color gradations.  The very special fabrics that I might only have 1 yard of, I rip into fat eights or smaller so I can make as many colors as possible. 

Whew!  Long post.  More to come so if you want to keep up you might want to subscribe to the blog by email.  See the button on the sidebar.