April meeting - fabric dyeing

At our next meeting (Saturday 12 April) we will be working with procion dyes. Leah will bring the concentrated dye solutions and lots of soda. The list of things that you will need to bring is below. As usual this will not be a ‘taught’ workshop – it is entirely up to you to decide what and how you want to dye! So this is an opportunity to do more resist dyeing or to maybe do some graduation dyeing. Cost for chemicals will be about £5.

 

Leah will demonstrate ice dyeing (see photo above). If you want to have a go please let her know so she can buy the ice. One bag per person will cost approx. £1.50 and will give you enough to dye 3 or 4 pieces either quarter metre or half metre. You will need to supply the fabric and 1 or 2 containers to layer your fabric, ice and dyes in to take the home. If you want to do more, please bring extra ice – you could try ice cubes which would give a different effect. And if you want to try using dry dye powders rather than liquid dyes please also bring your own.

THINGS TO BRING -

Salt solution – dissolve 500g of the cheapest table salt you can buy in 2 litres of water. You’ll need to use fairly hot water to get all the salt to dissolve.

Fabric – procion dyes will only work with cotton, silk or viscose. Unless the fabric is sold as ‘prepared for dye (PFD) you will need to put the fabric through a hot wash to remove any dressings. Even with PFD fabrics it is worth checking how easily they absorb a drop of water, it should absorb instantly – if in doubt pre-wash the fabric.

Large plastic sheet, an apron or wear old cloths and rubber gloves.

A range of plastic cups and spoons for mixing the solutions.

Lots of containers for dyeing the fabric in and taking it home – plastic freezer bags for dyeing ‘solid’ colours, empty plastic pots for layered or parfait dyeing, trays for dyeing large pieces of fabric and for dyeing threads.

Kitchen towel.

Scissors for cutting fabric and a marker pen for labelling fabric / freezer bags.

Notebook to keep track of what combinations of dyes you use.

 

We also said we would use this session to dye one big piece of fabric that we will cut up and share – the idea is that we each then take this piece of fabric through multiple other processes in subsequent sessions to see where we all end up. If you want to ‘sign up’ please let Leah know. We will need to decide what size piece we are each going to have, what colour / colours we want to use to dye it and what dyeing technique we want to use next Saturday. Leah will bring the fabric (Whaleys Delphina Cotton Poplin).

 

And finally we said that we might have an ‘ugly’ fabric challenge – bring along a piece of fabric that you have dyed or printed but really hate and see if somebody else can turn an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan!

 

We’ll have a shared lunch as normal and a show and tell.