I am a acid dyer, through and through. I like to dye fiber that comes from animals - protein based fiber - and this is because of the brilliance of color that can be achieved and consistancy of how things are absorbed. I have control. (Issue? What issue?) And I've been doing it for a while, so I get it. I know how the fiber will react.
Recently, I had this crazy idea to get into cellulose dyeing - essentially dyeing plant based fibers like cotton and linen and such. I wanted to make quiltied pillows and even went so far as to model some things in Illustrator:
Anyway, I dip dyed a bunch of squares in some procion mx dye. Yes, that is a chopstick suspending the squares in the liquid. I couldn't hold them, since it takes a full hour for everything to steep and set properly.
Then when they were all dry and ironed, I sewed them together. None of the squares line up quite right due to the fact that all that water soaking loosened the fibers, the edges frayed a bunch and my neat squares became rectangles. I didn't realize this until mid-sew. Awesome.
The fabric was left over from a quiling project I had a while ago. The fibers are blue in one direction and pink in the other giving the fabric an overall purple look. Due to this fiber alignment, it can look more blue or more pink depending on how it's oriented. I purposely aligned the fabric in opposite directions so that the color change would come through in quadrants. The effect is pretty amazing:
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| Blue fibers run horizontally in the upper right and lower left quadrants. |
Overall, a great learning project. Need a little more practice on my quilting and cotton dyeing skills!
