A couple of days dyeing

We had a day fabric dyeing for the past couple of days. My stash of hand dyed fabric was really low and so it was time to rebuild my stash. We all decided to have one of those try it and see what happens dyeing sessions. I think these are the best kind. You just never know what you are going to get. I use the low immersion technique. Here they are drying on the clothes line. Well the first batch. I ironed them last night. They look so much better when they have been ironed and folded. I am, not sure my photography skills do them justice they are much brighter in real life. I used three parent colours. I put a piece of fabric a little larger than a fat quarter (18" x 22"). My fabric is 60" wide. I cut a metre and then cut it on quarter. I just add a cup of soda ash solution to each ziploc bag (the small ones) add whatever amount of dye (a tablespoon at a time) depending on what I want to mix, add the damp fabric, seal the bag and leave it overnight to cure.
I just scrunch them up in the bag and leave them to give a little texture. Sometimes I fold and tie to give even more texture. I used Fuschia and Indigo for the above fabrics. 6 bags and put 1 teaspoon of fuschia dye solution in bag 1, 1 tablespoon in bag 2, 2 tablespoons in bag 3, 3 in bag 4, 4 in bag 5 and 5 tablespoons in bag 6. Starting from bag 6 I put the indigo in in the same way. You get a nice colour family that way. All the fabrics match.

I used Indigo and Golden Yellow with these ones but I think I should have squished the bag a little more. I am not happy with these ones but maybe they will look better when they are ironed!!!! I might overdye them..... we shall see.

Together with the cotton fabric I popped in some scrim, silk hankies and a mawata cap. I have some more bags brewing at the moment. I shall rinse them tomorrow morning. The ones above are the ones I washed this morning.

I am trying inket transfers using Golden Gel Medium without much success I have to say. I jhave only tried once so I guess I should try it again! I usually print directly onto fabric but having read Sandra Meech's books I thought I would try using the gel medium technique. It will leave the fabric quite stiff - not sure why she doesn't just print directly to the fabric. This seems a bit like the T-shirt transfers which I don't much like. We shall see how it goes.

I set up the webcam/microphone in the log cabin. Our little group from around the world are going to do another little session together over the weekend and I need to make sure it's all working in here. It's so much fun.