Saturday 14 March 2009

Dyeing in the kitchen


To day was the day. I spend all day dyeing in the kitchen. No, I haven't had food poisoning and I'm very much alive. I've been dyeing threads, bits of fabric, silk cocoon strippings, wooden coffee stirrers and beads. Luckily I didn't have to cook a meal today as you wouldn't have been able to find the cooker nor the counter tops. At some stage it looked more like a science lab. I decided to space dye in trays, as I wanted soft multicolored thread. I have been doing a lot of hand embroidery lately so I needed to build up my thread stash again, as well I have want to add mixed packs of the dyed embroidery thread to "SewDanish".

I use Procion MX, fiber reactive cold water dye for most of my dyeing. It is easy to use. Except for the dye powder it only needs washing soda ash/crystals to fix the dye and cooking salt to make the dye stock spread easily. You can add urea as well, but I rarely do that. I only got half of my dyeing done, as I ran out of soda, so I'll have to nip over to the supermarket tomorrow. Right now I have drying racks with all these wonderful coloured threads drying all over the kitchen. Cannot wait to see them all dry tomorrow morning. It is always so exciting to see the result. My dyeing is never a particular exact science, so I never know the result until it is all dry.

2 comments:

Caly's Jewelry Creations said...

Sounds like fun...! I hope we get to see the results..!!

SewDanish-Scandinavian Textile Art, Unique Handmade Supplies said...

I have actually taken photoes of the proces as I'm planing on writing a turorial. I love dying anything that can be dyed. It is such a fun and easy way of getting great results.