Monday, March 28, 2011

More vat dye eye candy

Still on the road, and have time to post more pictures. Woke up with a better attitude about my own work. Current plan is to spend half the day on chores (i.e. filing taxes, shipping muslin) and mid-afternoon onwards dyeing fabric. But for now, revel in some pictures:
Elin pointing out the insides of foldsThis is the orange and purple Radiance that I posted about yesterday (below.) After another sample that dyed only on the edges, I chickened out at putting this one into the vat. I need to start with smaller pieces first. The fold marks remain and will Undyed shibori sampleshow where additional patterning will happen.
Look at the tiny binding
Laharia (turban cloths)

Sample dyed after using smocking pleater, seen in the backgroundShows capped section from the topShows capped example from the bottomStitched and pole-wrapped
This is a piece of fabric that was dyed the fairly dark green that you see, then immersed in a light blue vat dye. It has not been soaped yet – we’ll see if the color or luster changes much.
One thing I would do differently would be to start with a variety of fairly interesting fabrics, rather than the mostly solid pieces that I took. That should be my starting point when I resume working with vat dyes. I also think I will stick more with analogous color schemes. They can be very arresting; classic and elegant without the jarring look most of my vat dyed pieces have. It's a plan, anyway! Thanks for looking!

2 comments:

silkpjs said...

"Vat dyeing" -- do you mean using dyes that require lye? That's what I always thought it meant, a dye that when mixed with water goes into a leuco state and then precipitates out onto the fiber when the lye is added. If that's not it, what do you mean? Just curious.

Lisa from DippyDyes said...

You're right - I'm going to write a quick post so everybody can see. Thanks!