Sunday, October 10, 2010

Dyeing My Personal Color Family

I am finally getting to something that I had hoped to do long before now.

I am dyeing a color family ala Carol Soderlund.



The colors I am using will be Tangerine, Scarlet and Turquoise.

I have spent the past few days reviewing the procedure until I understood it again.



I had stapled the labels to almost all the fabrics quite some time ago. I finished this and checked to be sure all the staples were secure and made sure everything was in their proper stack.


Today I worked on preparing my space. I had some cushioned floor mats put down in my dyeing area to making it easier on my feet and back. We exchanged the small table I had in that room for a longer one so I have more space to organize the process.


This afternoon and evening I went through the supplies for dyeing and straightened them and the shelves out.



I put the things I needed on the table or on top of the washer and dryer.



These are my 3 Wonder Washers. By using them to dye the swatches I will eliminate the continual stirring by hand.
I plan on dyeing 3 batches at the same time. I will need to do 18 batches to finish the color family.



I mixed the Tangerine dye I will be using tomorrow as it is best to mix it the day before.

This will not be a tutorial. I will just share my journey as I do this project.

6 comments:

Eva said...

So great to be invited into a studio to watch the process! Thank you!

GerryART said...

Thanks for allowing me to watch you go through the process.
Am looking forward to it, Kay.
Hugs,
Gerry

Deb said...

Hoping you had a very productive day! Let us know how far you got today! Can't wait to see some of the finished product. My favorite picture is the one of all the colors just out of the dryer, but before ironing! Let us know how those wonder washers worked! I want to do a couple of more color families as well and think that I need the wonder washers to keep from having to do all that stirring! Thanks for sharing!

Laura said...

The tangerine is just beautiful--I'm a novice dyer and wonder why you mix the dye the day before--does it make the color richer?

Kay Koeper Sorensen said...

I can't remember but I think it puts more of the dye in the solution.
I just do whatever Carol Soderlund says and don't ask why.

Laura said...

Thanks for the answer, taking a class with Carol would probably save me from making lots of new dyer mistakes.