Gads, could it really be the first of October? Seeing this tree when I pulled into the library parking lot last week left no doubt about how far into the year we are. However, I found some solace in this quotation from an essay by Joy Williams on the truth-telling of fall:
“Fall is. It always comes round, with its lovely patience. If in the beginning it’s restless, at the end it’s resigned, complete in its waiting, complete in the utter correctness of what it has to tell us. Which is that we’re transitory. We’re transient, we’re temporary, we’re all only sometime.”
Another nudge toward acceptance might be the colors of the final dye runs for my friends. The reds, oranges and golds are definitely of the season. I'm very pleased with how these turned out, although the golds could have been a little deeper towards an orange. I think it's an old dye to blame.
I'd been holding back some earlier runs that had been rinsed but not put through a Synthropal wash because I knew I'd have more fabric in similar colors that could be washed with them. Here are the greens, sort of lime greens in the middle (struggling with camera to get every color right) but nothing that was very teal green even though I tried some overdyeing. On the bottom is the "teal green" that in no way is green. At the very top is a half yard dyed with some leftover purple and fuchsia dyes I think (I sort of lost track of the combinations I tried using up leftover dye solutions). That fuchsia makes it almost neon!
In the same way that my friend kept repeating "lime green" she also repeated "folded fabric". So I did two fat quarters folded different ways and put them in the "teal green" dye solution. The lighter portions do look like they are trying to lean towards a teal.
With the "precision" dyeing finished, I had fun playing with leftover dye solutions and came away with some stunners I may have a hard time giving up. This is the technique of stuffing a fat quarter into a tall narrow jar like an olive jar, covering with soda ash solution, pouring a little dye solution in and letting that set for about ten minutes while the solution starts settling to the bottom. Then pour a little more soda ash solution and another dye solution color on top and let sit overnight or up to 24 hours.
Trying to get a closeup of the subtle texturing in the white part.
Here's another one, the sort of thing we literally dye for.
And still with plenty of dye solution to play with, I dyed up three linen napkins that go with a linen tablecloth used at my grandparents' golden wedding anniversary reception. I've seen the pictures of its otherwise uninteresting yellow as it peeks through the lace tablecloth thrown over it. Not something I ever thought I would use but it came with a cedar chest full of other family treasures after they died and I've hung onto it out of pure sentimentality for over 50 years. But with the newfound skill of dyeing, I've often thought about cutting it up and overdyeing it, and now I know it can be done with excellent results. The upper two were done in bags, the lower one pinched in the middle to create folds falling down before putting in a glass jar.
I still have some dye solution left, and being raised in a "waste not want not" household, I feel I should do a few more one of a kind pieces rather than toss it. On the other hand, my dye powder supply overfloweth, and I have company coming in about two weeks which will require that flurry of housework in preparation. Maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead . . .
6 comments:
Depending on your storage availability, you could keep those dye solutions until after your company has left and then do those wonderful one-of-a-kind pieces. Snow may be on your horizon too. One year, I took all the leftover dye/dye pastes from an entire semester of students dyeing fabric; arranged it by color in like a color wheel; cut up pieces of three kinds of fabric, arranged those pieces at each'station' and then dumped the liquid dye, or wiped out the paste; stuck it all in a black garbage bag that I carried around in the bed of my truck (june and july here in Texas) and then washed and dried it;. I was very pleased with the results---of course I have no photos to show you. I did wash out those dye cups and returned them to the dye lab at the beginning of the fall semester.
Thank you Sylvia for confirming what I thought. My dye book firmly states that dye solutions kept in a cool place like the refrigerator stay good for a week, but some of these experiments were done with solutions that had been sitting in my hot garage for two or three weeks and yet they produced satisfactory results. Cooler in there now. If you are concerned with getting specific results I can see why you'd be cautioned to use up solutions quickly but when throwing the dice as it were and using more solution perhaps per piece of fabric, old dye stock still works. I've even seen a method of freezing it in ice cube trays for later use where the cubes can be laid out on treated fabric to melt into the most beautiful patterns. Of course, I don't have room in my freezer right now for an extra set of trays. I could somewhat duplicate your batching in the back of your truck with a few minutes in the microwave which seems to really work.
These are fabulous! The run of fall colors looks just like fall leaves, and some of the others are very wintry. It looks like you're really on a creative roll!
Thanks Sherrie! Now as my friend said, deciding how to use them. ;-)
I agree that the first ones are Fall inspiration! I've enjoyed seeing what you're producing since I haven't tried any of this except ice dye once & playing with dyes & paints another time. Both were at someone else's house so I have no idea what actually goes into the process. Thanks for sharing! Jan in WY
You're welcome Jan! Ice or snow dyeing is one of the free-est ways to dye and results always a surprise. The type of specific color dyeing I mostly did for my friend takes more planning (at least for me), but both kinds have similar pre and post processing of the fabric. Glad you enjoyed what I have shared.
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