Dyeing Workshop 2010

Our annual fabric dyeing workshop at Vera's was this weekend. We had loads of fun, even tho it got to 100' on Saturday, arrgh!! I was working on batik pieces that I had already waxed at home, and it was so hot, my cheap foam brush with the dye was rubbing the wax right off the fabric, what a mess. I put it aside at lunch time, and let it dry out back in the shade. During the afternoon I went down to her pottery studio- dye workshop, which had struggling air conditioning, and dye a quantity of fabric. I used a 3 layer technique, I start with one piece of fabric in a small tub, add dye, then fixative, then another piece of fabric, a second dye and fix, then a third layer. It helps if you don't stir the fabric, it blends and bleeds in some areas and not others, making a blotchy blend of colors on each piece. It is also fun to use very different colors, like eggplant(dark purple) +turquoise+ yellow gold. If you know your color theory you can kinda predict what it will make, but it is usually a surprise, cause you don't know how much it will blend or stay separate. These were my favorite types of dyeing to do. On Sunday we had it cooler, so I got to finish working on the batiks. I did about 10 pieces, they each got 3 colors layered on, with wax added at each step. The darker colors added last, really highlighted the lighter colors that I had waxed over. When I got home I ironed with lots of newspaper to remove some of the wax. It is a real pain to do, I still have more pieces to do later. The soy wax we used is water soluble with hot water and soap, but our plumbing is so old, I didn't want it coagulating in the pipes as the water cooled. I will finish it in the washing machine when I am done ironing as much wax out as I can.