Day 8

Today was the much anticipated dye day. But  before I could mix and use my dye solutions, I had to make the final preparations for my fabric. Several pieces had stitches running through them which needed to be pulled up in order for the final product to have a pattern on it. 

Stitched fabric

(Mostly) drawn up stitches

Next, all of the fabric needed to be soaked in water in order to cleanly take up the dyes.

While the fabric soaked, I mixed the dye solutions that I used. For this project I am using a gradient of three pinks, and a pale blue. To mix the dye solutions, I added drops of the concentrated dye mixture (dye powder, urea and water) to the chemical water(soda ash, salt, and water). 

Once the solutions were mixed, it was time for the fun part! Each type of manipulation required the dye to be applied in a slightly different manner. Some of these different techniques are pictured below. 

Painting the dye onto a drawn up piece of fabric

Brushing a gradient onto a flat piece of fabric

As the dye began to set into the fabric, I began the process of rinsing and drying the pieces that I was satisfied with.

Here my advisor and I looking at a piece that we are going to hang to dry

On Friday I am going to be rinsing and washing the final pieces, so look out for pictures of the finished pieces in my next post! 

• Julia M.