The weather was super windy and fairly chilly as we began our dyeing session mid afternoon on the first day....so we used our time do some microwave dyeing in a protected area.
I personally enjoy working with hand-dyed threads....so we set about dyeing embroidery floss and perle cotton.
We were flying by the seat of our pants since none of us had done this before.......but our results were just great. The threads were placed in microwave safe shallow containers and painted with lines of different colors of dye.......
......covered with Glad Press and Seal Plastic Wrap and zapped for a minute each.
Here's our results after machine washing in a lingerie bag.
Kate was gifted some burlap so we thought that might be fun to dye. After testing by burning some fibers, we determined it was cotton. The pieces were soaked in soda ash and wrung out. Each was placed in a microwave safe plastic container, covered with plastic wrap and zapped (one at a time) for 2 mins. (until the material reached 140 degrees).
Judy brought gauze. 2 different weaves helped to yield different looks. Happily, I ended up with all three pieces....thanks girlfriends!!!
When we had excess dyes remaining in our trays and bowls.....we mopped them up with pieces of cotton batting. With the exception of the bright turquoise, most ended up very pale after the final washing. However, I'm sure the paler versions will still be helpful for some future projects.
This is what our drying rack looked like about 9:00 PM....after about 4-5 hours of experimenting.
More to come tomorrow.....
3 comments:
Always love experiments!!! Looks great!!!
You did have some fun!
I have got to try dyieing some thread now. Doesn't look difficult at all! Thanks for your interesting posts :)
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