Snow dyes, samples & polyester

After doing some snow dyeing last year, I couldn't wait to start again this winter. The first two pictures are ones I did in December; they're also posted there for my sister to take a look at, because I don't remember which one she prefers. Got nice dark, or strong colors this year because I used a LOT of dye.


The blue fabrics are the four fat quarters I dyed together to try different muslins. From top to bottom, they are the "new" muslin (substitute for Jan Myers-Newberry's choice), not scoured, new muslin scoured, Nature's Way muslin, scoured, and Testfabrics' broadcloth. The muslin quality, as I may have mentioned in my last post, is very similar between the new and Nature's Way brands. The new muslin is not what I would call sueded, but it has a nice hand. I was surprised that the two pieces I scoured reacted somewhat differently, but they are different brands. The new muslin looks better, though this was not an exhaustive test. The unscoured piece did dye, but unevenly and took a lot more squishing. The broadcloth dyed the best, and it came out bluer than the muslins. A small bit of this is due to it being whiter to begin with; mostly it's due to the fact that it was PFD when it got here, and it is mercerized. The process I used was a 'mid-water' immersion. The water to goods ratio was about 5:1, the pieces were stirred constantly for about 12 minutes before adding soda ash solution, and for about 6 minutes afterwards. Then they were put into slide-lock bags, all the air was squeezed out, and they batched overnight.

These next pictures are fabrics I dyed for Kate. They show six- and seven-step value gradations, plus a white piece of fabric at the top. The brown shades are a four-step value gradation. The two lightest lights are .6% and 1.3% OWG, but there is less difference in person than in the photograph, I think. She's going to let me know what she thinks.



The last photo shows a piece of Robert Kaufman's
'NuSuede' in process on a heat press. You can see the difference in color between the processed fabric on the platen, and the unheated fabric hanging to the right. A local sign shop let me have some time on it, because it's a big expense to consider without a test drive. There's a learning curve with the press as well as with the color mixing, but it's definitely worth pursuing. Fun, too.