I’m a glutton for color. It’s always interesting to go back and take a look at my work from when I very first started learning about dyeing fiber to see that shown so very clearly. More more more color! I love deep hues and intense saturation. I love color that takes itself seriously and solemnly. I love absurd color, playful color, color that makes you need sunglasses. I love naming colorways silly names, poignant names, names that are really in-jokes that no one but me would find amusing.
But always I want more. So, now and then I have a brainstorm and giddily start throwing dye and techniques around and bullying fiber to try to force it to take more more more. Here’s the results of a few experiments I’ve done lately.
I posted this same picture in the last Blog post, but what I didn’t say was what it was. Its two bits of bamboo that I used in testing. Both bits used the exact same method, same amount of dye, and processed in the same way, for the same length of time. The only difference is that I added kosher salt to the darker bit. Needless to say when I rinsed these I was extremely excited. I went ahead and used the same method on every single other fiber I work with. I didn’t see any difference at all in how much dye was taken up when working with protein fibers (which made me sad for my mulberry silk dreams) but it made a difference on all the cellulose I tested except Tencel. I think Tencel already takes up dye so intensely that there isn’t really room for more.
Every time I look at this picture I get completely giddy. It may be difficult to tell from the picture, but that is black merino streaked with green and purple tencel. As you may know I really only work with top, so part of the challenge for me as a dyer as been trying to figure out how to get the fantastic depth and variety of color that people who use a carder to blend their fibers. But now, I have this fun method. By dyeing in two stages I can apply one dye to the tencel, then another dye to the wool. I’ll be playing around with different color combinations on this one because the mind boggles, but this was my first. I was so happy when I managed this one that my husband even posted to his Facebook about it. Now that’s love!
I will say I overprocessed it a touch and as a result it was more compacted than I was willing to sell, so my friend Emily got the boon of getting a full pound of it all to herself, since she was willing to tease and fluff it up enough to spin. I’m sure there will be pictures soon of the finished yarn. She’s calling it Oil Slick for the time being which seems pretty perfect to me!
One of the other things I’ve decided to do is to go back to 8 ounce dye lots. I’ve been doing a full pound for most dye lots this last year and its been great. But with the smaller batches I have a bit more control over some of the techniques I use. The result is this.
These are colorways that I’ve done previously on (from the left) milk, mulberry silk, and bamboo rayon. Macaw, Coffee Toffee and Night With Her Stars on Targhee, then two lots of Merino/Silk. I really enjoy having the same colorways on my proteins and my cellulose fibers, even though each takes up color a bit different. I’m thinking that by combining the salt with the cellulose fibers my options have expanded greatly. I’ll need to be careful though otherwise everything in my shop will wind up looking like Macaw. I’m such a sucker for blues and greens.
