the red

finally red. the way to get it is to raise the PH to 11 with soda ash.

then putting a piece of open weave cotton in it to absorb the red dye. notice i say dye as there's a lot of confussion on the internet between dye and pigment. do yourself a favor and get the butrop/ellis dye book. you'll never dye the same way again. ask me how i know.

 the photo gave me a chuckle as it looks like the painting flaming june which is in the ponce museum of art in puerto rico.

after a 24 hour soak the cotton blanket has absorbed the red and is this gorgeous shocking pink. so far excellent. maybe it doesn't need to soak for that long, need to check on that.

 right. now i want to dye silk. silk put directly in the bath absorbs both the red and the traces of yellow still in the petals and dyes corals. so the trick is to disccarge the wonderful schiaparelli pink in acidulated water. you're aming PH6. bless the inventor of litmus paper, a great deal more efficient and precise than my digi PH meter which has to be calibrated every time and sometimes gives incorrect readings.

 you need to rinse the color  blanket before putting it in the acidulated bath or else yellow will transfer to the bath as well.

et voila mesdames! a soft pink silk skein. have some other skeins waiting to be dyed, aiming for deeper color. that's why one needs plenty of dyestuffs.

neki desu