Sunday 13 June 2010

Playing With Dye!

On Friday morning I ripped out a collection of curtain linings I had saved for a rainy day and cut them into manageable lengths for dying. They were sourced from various people and the second-hand shops; the curtains themselves were mostly too worn to be any good. Also a friend gave me a set of curtains for which she had no further use.
I always forget what fun it is playing with dye- these are the most vibrant results but there is a lot more. I use Dylon Hot Water dye mostly as its the only fabric dye you can get here. Above is Bordeaux #11, below Golden Glow #2:
Bordeaux again:
Below is Jungle Green #26:
And then I threw in a ball of string to see what would happen, also some white plastic buttons, the kitchen towel and some handkerchiefs! Its funny how everyone runs a mile when they see the dye-pot come out!!!
SUCH FUN!
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I'm going to make up some cushion covers for the shop, and shopping totes, as it seems that tie-dye fabrics are 'in'...probably due to the whole World Cup thing being in South Africa. A bit pseudo, it should be mud-cloths if people want to go really African, or indigo dyes...now, if I'd only thought I could have grown a stash of indigo and be turning everything blue!!!
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Have any of you experimented with plant dyes? I'd be well interested if you have as its something I'd really like to try.
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On another note (pun, ha! ha!)(and I may have said this before...) but have you heard the voice of Jack Lukeman? He is just so amazing, such timbre and resonance- here's a link if you are curious, but none of the YouTube snippets I listened to did his voice justice really.

5 comments:

Ulla said...

The Dylon dyes are what I get here, too. Messy business, if you want to make several colours, but fun. I have not tried natural dyes myself, but read a lot about it.

Soggibottom said...

You can tell so much by someone's voice... croak, croak, croak.......
As for the dye's..
Onion peelings Red one's are stronger.
Yarrow...
Wode, you need to be able to spot it :-)
Elderberry, blackberry.
Another good one is just plain bashing flowers with a hammer onto material. DO YOU GOOD :-) x x x

Soggibottom said...

Plums x x x

Griselda Pugh said...

These are all lovely, and I really like the second bordeaux result.

I haven't used natural dyes deliberately, but judging by how difficult it is to get carrot based baby food out of things, that might be worth a try :)

Janice / Dancing with Sunflowers said...

Lovely! I've only used shop dyes a couple of times - and never with tie dye, although I'd like to. I'd really like to experiment with plant dyes and plan to start with calendula pretty soon.

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