These pictures were taken in the last of the summer...trust me there is no going outside these days with all the rain and the coldness!..but the colours make me happy.
This is the finished result. i use fibre reactive dyes. I make up a strong dye solution, with just water. I only own dyes in the primary colours, so I mix up red blue and yellow dyes, power and water, in disposable containers!..you only need about 1/2 pint of strong colours. And then mix blue+red=purple etc, to give me the three secondary colours.
Start with piece of prewashed cloth (to remove any starch) I used a square about a yard long/wide. Lay it flat on the ground in front of you and grasp the centre point and start to twist
it will look like this if you let go...dont let go.
keep twisting, keeping the fabric fairly flat to the ground, until you end up with a tight spiral of all of the fabric, arrange the pleats as you go to keep it fairly neat.
For a rainbow spiral, take three long pieces of string, carefully put the first one underneath, bring it to the top and tie off, do this with the two other pieces so that you have the fabric divided into 6 sections (I know a rainbow has 7 colours, but this is a good approximation)
tie off the string fairly tight (tighter than in this pic) and tuck in the loose ends so you have a neat package
I use the soda soak method of dying, with procion fibre reactive dyes, this means that the (dry) fabric gets soaked for about 20 minutes in a strong solution of washing soda and water.
take out the fabric and squeeze out as much of the soaking liquid as you can, keeping the spiral intact. Set it on the draining board of the sink..or work outside..it is messy.
'Fill' in three segments with your three primary colours, yellow, skip one, red, skip one, blue , skip one...( you will notice from the photos that I screwed this up..but it still looks OK, tie dyeing is very forgiving. You don't have to completely soak each segment, some white is good and will look good in the end. Don't worry about staying inside of the lines..as long as you have complimentary colours adjacent to the ones you are adding, they will blend and look great. I use a big paintbrush to put the colour onto the fabric.
You can either put the spiral, very carefully into a plastic bag to allow it to soak for a while, this should increase the intensity of the colour a bit..or if you are like me, cut off the threads, rinse out the fabric to remove excess dye and glory in the eye-popping colour.
this is the very best way to revive tired bedlinen, makes a great centre for a quilt and is just fun,
once you are done you might find you have dye left over, so scurry all around your house for tired white cotton clothing, chuck them in the soda soak for about 15 minutes and then have fun!
This is the finished result. i use fibre reactive dyes. I make up a strong dye solution, with just water. I only own dyes in the primary colours, so I mix up red blue and yellow dyes, power and water, in disposable containers!..you only need about 1/2 pint of strong colours. And then mix blue+red=purple etc, to give me the three secondary colours.
Start with piece of prewashed cloth (to remove any starch) I used a square about a yard long/wide. Lay it flat on the ground in front of you and grasp the centre point and start to twist
it will look like this if you let go...dont let go.
keep twisting, keeping the fabric fairly flat to the ground, until you end up with a tight spiral of all of the fabric, arrange the pleats as you go to keep it fairly neat.
For a rainbow spiral, take three long pieces of string, carefully put the first one underneath, bring it to the top and tie off, do this with the two other pieces so that you have the fabric divided into 6 sections (I know a rainbow has 7 colours, but this is a good approximation)
tie off the string fairly tight (tighter than in this pic) and tuck in the loose ends so you have a neat package
I use the soda soak method of dying, with procion fibre reactive dyes, this means that the (dry) fabric gets soaked for about 20 minutes in a strong solution of washing soda and water.
take out the fabric and squeeze out as much of the soaking liquid as you can, keeping the spiral intact. Set it on the draining board of the sink..or work outside..it is messy.
'Fill' in three segments with your three primary colours, yellow, skip one, red, skip one, blue , skip one...( you will notice from the photos that I screwed this up..but it still looks OK, tie dyeing is very forgiving. You don't have to completely soak each segment, some white is good and will look good in the end. Don't worry about staying inside of the lines..as long as you have complimentary colours adjacent to the ones you are adding, they will blend and look great. I use a big paintbrush to put the colour onto the fabric.
this is the very best way to revive tired bedlinen, makes a great centre for a quilt and is just fun,
once you are done you might find you have dye left over, so scurry all around your house for tired white cotton clothing, chuck them in the soda soak for about 15 minutes and then have fun!
I'm a Craftster Best of 2010 Winner!
