colors changing hues...

this is very exciting, let me share it with you.

yesterday Dick Huset posted something on the natural dyes list about  gromwell and shifting the blue by adding an acid. i had noticed the alcohol extraction liquid was very red, but when water was added it turned blue.i was going to try some after mordanting to shift colors when the dyeing was completed, but let's face it, as i  have a scant supply of shikon i was scared to f***up.

i cut a lime in half dashed outside and dunked it in the dye tub where there was some silk peacefully soaking.voila! it started shifting towards the red almost immediately.  here is the mystery behind what i saw in japan as murasaki dyed . all those deep reddish purples.

the skein at the background of the photo goes towards the blue because it was soaked in ash lye water.  on its third dip  now the color is less gray than on the second dip and more let's say glowing form inside out for want   of a better term.  the foreground skein has been dipped twice, the second time in the acidulated dyebath.

-digression and rant- GRRRR! between google and microsoft they are trying hard to impoverish the language. acidulated is counted as wrong in ms spellcheck. if you don't use  the words google  likes it ignores you and you don't get indexed. GRRRR!

back to dyeing. the reddish skein went back to the dye tub and will stay there until the dye exhausts.

i still have some dyestuff soaking in alcohol and will use it for the textured silk which coincidentally i was aiming at  getting reddish purple.

250 knots already tied to the dummy warp, working on the mokume this afternoon. life is good.

neki desu

life, friendship and the itinerant stitcher

spent all weekend stitching and drawing up threads. well almost as i also kept convos with Velma and Jan almost chat like real time. fun!
then i went on DUH! mode.

tell you a secret.

the weaving here was supposed to collapse as you can see in the foreground. i had applied some alginate resist to the background so that i could get  unfelted parts, but it did not work. the intention with  the mokume was to replicate more or less the effect of the collapse in that vast dense expansion that resulted from the alginate misbehavior.
however  i hit a roadblock when thinking about the dyeing. how was i going to keep the sides from dyeing? i could block them out with cling film, but that was surely going to add some patterning and i wanted the sides in their  pristine akane color .

stitching creates such a space for thinking!
i remembered a post by Joan about working with thickened natural dyes. i also remembered  that i still had kakishibu which would give me the soft golden brown i was after.i could thicken it with alginate and brush it on the gathered folds..
now if that isn't  double DUH...

i just have to tie the gathered threads tightly and brush the kakishibu.
such happiness visited today along with a crisp clear fall morning! i know now i'm going to get not only the effect, but also the color i want .

weaving wise i have already tied 150 little knots. i feel incredibly accomplished :).i might even treat myself to some chili spiced chocolate from lindt

 plus  there has also been a lot of activity over at artfire during the weekend helping the new people get settled in.

neki desu

some thoughts on dyeing

a silk skein is seeping in the murasaki dye.  another one will be steeped in alum for the second time. the difference,not a banal one, between seeping and steeping is that of temperature.

which brings up questions. if the dye is not rendered  permanent is it well dyed?

there is a certain expected fading, we all fade.desirably fading should be achieved with grace and elegance.

but if the dyeing is not properly done  it would be a dis service to handmade and i would be playing in the h&m and zara league  with a huge disadvantage.

if i chose to make things by hand it was to honor a certain way of doing ,of respecting times and procedures. and personally i would feel uncomfortable asking money for something that will not hold up, that albeit being  handmade it would be use and toss.

i tend to side, for more than the obvious reason, with the japanese way of  natural dyeing. letting things rest for a period of time and slowly building on them.  for example, the woven scarf  in the image was woven last  april and the dyeing took place between may and june and then put to rest to let the color develop.

now i'm stitching a mokume pattern and then overdye the woven scarf  with either logwood or walnut and put it down to rest  again.

i could and do resort to synthetic dyes if i need/ want quick results . i have no problems with that. but i feel that in  natural dyeing other parameters rule.

 what are your thoughts on the subject of dyeing and permanence? and of natural vs. synthetic dyeing?

have a good weekend!

 

 

neki desu