Adventures with DeColorant

In my last post I mentioned that I had been playing around with DeColorant.  this was one of the successful experiments.  I used some of my ugly scarves-the ones that I had kept trying to no avail.  Since this one, I have done some with leaf stencils that worked well.  I also took the scarves that were not sucessful and boiled them with dye remover, the aplied soy wax and over-dyed.  they are in the wash now.  will give an update tomorrow.

Obsessed!

I live in a very small house.  When something is not in use, it gets stowed away.   Once I got out all the gear for dying, I can't stop until I am done!  No dawdling about it.  For the last week, I have done some sort of task related to dying every day.  These photos show some of what I have accomplished.  I dyed several 6 step gradations.  I have been starting with dye and fabric, after 10 minutes add soda ash, then another piece of fabric, and so on, so that it gets lighter as you add fabric. 

 Some of them don't have as much variance as I would like to see.  The next batch I will try mixing the dye for each step.  More work, but if I get better results...These are all fat eighths.  Mixing each stage, I will do larger pieces of fabric.

 this piece started out as a light peach color.  I stitched the circles, then dyed it in red dye.  I dipped the stitched portion then submerged the fabric with the stitched part sticking out.  The center circles has the most definition,

 This piece started out yellow.  I had bound some stones before dying, but it really didn't show on the yellow, so I bound it with rubber bands and dyed it in orange.  What is weird is that the original bindings show better now!

 Small stones bound with rubber bands.  I like this, but I wish I had dyed it first.  Try again...

 Pole wrapped shibori.

 This piece was yellow, bound with rubber bands, then dyed in red and fushia, bound with rubber bands again.

Another piece of pole wrapped shibori.  I also dyed some scarves with this batch, but took no photos.  Nothing terribly extraordinary.  Now it is time to take todays work out of the drier and see what I got!

Dye Day

Prayer Flags for Ron.  My friend Ron had a stroke last week so I made these flags for him.  Truxton and Olivia graciously offered to hold them up so I could take a photo.  I will send them to Anchorage with friends that are going to visit.

 I spent the day today with my son, Nick's, kids-Truxton, Olivia and Braelyn.  We started the day previewing the movie, Winnie the Pooh, at the theater AI manage.  When we returned to my house, Braelyn took a nap, and the older kids wer busily occupied so I got out the dye I mixed up yesterday, and all of the poles that I wrapped some time ago- you can see here: http://sallysartquilts.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-i-have-been-doing.html
 Most of it I am leaving to cure overnight but I couldn't wait, and rinsed out three scarves.



 Olivia did this one for her Grandma Darlene.

 This is hers, too.  I really like the lighter blue sections.

This is one that I did.  I bound stones and tied them off with little rubber bands.   This one is not destined to remain a scarf since I was impatient removing the rubber bands and accidently cut the scarf a tiny bit.  Now I will cut it up and find a creative use for it.  Stay tuned-tomorrow I will post pics of my water and northern lights shibori.  Better turn out really cool since I have hours into the preparation for dying!

Holiday Market

The Booth

Silk Scarves

Hats

Beneath the Surface

Seascape

Salmon Spirals

Rockfish