Dyed scarves, cotton & silk

Time gets away from me. I thought I’d show you the finished ombre-dyed scarves on the 2nd or 3rd, and here it is the 7th. No matter; it’s not like you were hanging by a thread (pun intended) waiting.

So even after ‘curing’ on the heating pad overnight, both the blue and the red scarf took LOTS of rinsing for the water to come clean. Online research tells me that RIT and similar dyes are not as colorfast as the more serious dyes that I use in the classes. Hope they wear well. Here’s the blue one.

I’m happy with it. The colors are fine, the ombre worked, and the undulating twill is stable. (I’ll have to remember this draft for future undulations.)

And the red scarf.

I’m not as happy with this one for two reasons. First there’s not as much difference between the lightest part and the darkest part as I’d like. Guess even my quick first dip was too long. Second – totally my fault and I should have known better. When I re- threaded for the huck lace, I again sett the threads at 10 EPI, same as for the undulating twill. As I started weaving I had to beat hard to get the look I wanted. I should have unwoven and rethreaded the reed at 9 or even 8 EPI, and thought about it, but I didn’t feel like it. 

So the lace is really only textural, not lace-like. That’d be okay, but scarf is much stiffer than I’d like as a result o too-close threads. Sigh. Why didn’t I listen to myself?!

Anyway, at the June show I sold 2 of the 3 handpainted silk in the gold/orange/red colorway. I had another warp in a similar colorway and wanted to weave it to bring to my show this weekend, if I could. (Yes, Virginia, I am obsessive-compulsive.)

So I beamed the warp and threaded for twill blocks. I wove the first scarf with a burgundy silk-cashmere blend.

I wasn’t as happy with the threading as I might have been, and it made getting good selvedges difficult, so I rethreaded. I liked this threading much better, and the weaving moved along well. I did the first scarf, which is by far my favorite so you’ll see it last and then struggled to find a weft I liked for the last. I ended up with a sort of smoky-slatey blue. (Color isn’t as bright as it looks i the photo.) It reminds me of a sunset with storm clouds moving in.

This last scarf – I just LOVE it! I am rarely called to name my woven pieces, but this one will get a name – summer sorbet. Woven with a medium orange weft, it brings out all of the hand painted colors beautifully. Wish I’d had enough of it to do more.

I’ll be really surprised if this scarf doesn’t sell this weekend. Now I’m off to pick up the rental van.
July 7th, 2016 | 

Trying dyeing

WARNING: A long post with lots of photos. Leave now while you’ve got the chance.

I need to start by showing you two wildflowers/weeds near my house. I’m hoping someone can identify at least one of them for me. The first is really sweet and small. You can see a portion of my foot in the photo for scale. The little flower is a nice orange. don’t recall ever seeing this plant before. I’m thinking it’s a garden escapee?

Then there’s the big weed that’s taken over the side yard of an abandoned house near me. When it was small I thought it was milkweed. It’s clearly not. I feel like I should know this one, and that it’s bad, but I can’t place it. I should probably get out my wildflower book. The stalks are quite red, and probably 3′ tall.

So other than looking at weeds/wildflowers, what else have I been doing? Well, at the show last weekend it was clear to me tha I should weave more bookmarks. I decided I wanted to do some monk’s belt, a weave structure I think I’ve only previously done in classes. I thought I’d wound a warp long enough to make 16 bookmarks, but I only got 13 out of it. That’s ok.

Then I really wanted to try doing some ombre dyeing with Rit dyes at home. I had picked up 3 cones of a really nice pima cotto at a local resale store. It’s quite thick, 790 ypp, very soft, and I figured it would weave up quickly and take dye well, plus I wasn’ out much money if it didn’t work. So I wound a warp for two scarves, and wove the first one with an undulating twill.

After that, remembering my recent undulating twill disaster (different draft), I re-threaded for huck lace, but forgot to take a photo on the loom. I got both scarves woven, then spent a bunch of time online looking at websites and blogs about ombre dyeing. I have to say, there was quite a bit of inconsistency in process and time needed, so I figured I’d have to go with my gut. I got the scarves washed and rinsed, then brought the needed tools outside.

I mixed up a bottle of Rit dye with a cup of salt in about a gallon of water – maybe a little more.

Then I started dipping. Since the yarn was unbleached and quite creamy colored, I didn’t think it would look good with the center having no dye at all, so dipped the entire scarf quickly.

Then I proceeded to lower and raise the scarf (note that it’s folded in half here), since I didn’t want distinct color lines. I dipped

the middle section about 30 times. I wanted the bottom quite dark, and dipped it about 120 times. Then I hung it on my arbor (another story for another time). I went in the house to get the second scarf and the next bottle of dye. While I was gone the wind kicked up and blew the scarf against my neighbor’s fence.

That wasn’t a big deal, but the splatters on my neighbor’s garage were.

I ran back into the house and got paper towels and dish soap. Should have had those tools outside with me to begin with. I moved the scarf to the front of the arbor and started on the next scarf, mixing up a batch of red dye.

It was too red for me, so I mixed in a bunch of the blue.

I wish the store had had more than 5 colors for me to choose from – these 2, plus black, brown, and dark green. Anyway, I followed the same process with the red dye. Here are both scarves hanging and dripping from the arbor.

You’d think I would have learned from the experience with my neighbor’s garage, and taken more care when I dumped out the blue dye in the weeds behind my own garage, but no.

There was so much of it that it didn’t really wipe off. I decided since it’s behind the garage I didn’t really care. So I headed to th other side of the yard and started the clean up. Fewer tools needed.

Interestingly, the red dye really stained the dishpan and the blue washed out almost completely. I would have expected the opposite, since in my experience red dye runs A LOT.

While the scarves were hanging outside dripping, I picked a mess of peas, went inside and shelled, steamed, quick-chilled, and froze a bag of them.

After a while I went back outside and brought in the scarves. I laid out a long piece of plastic wrap on the kitchen floor and laid scarf on it.

I covered it with another layer of plastic and rolled it up. Then I did the same thing with the red scarf.

After they were all rolled up I put them on my heating pad, set on low, where it will sit overnight, hopefully setting that dye.

Tomorrow I’ll rinse the scarves and press them. I won’t know until then how well it worked. I’m actually hoping that some of the dye rinses out since both scarves are a bit darker than I had in mind.

I’ll share the results with you!

July 1st, 2016 |