playing with colour

Ohhhh, I've been planning to do this for soooo long

and never came to it ...

(until now)

Perhaps all the wonderful stuff

at the Weaver's Market in Hoorn

gave me the last push

I know :

I love all the natural dying stuff I see and hear about

(surely after that indigo workshop)

BUT

I don't have enough room ( and pans, electric hob)

nor do I have the skills (and recipes)

to do so successfully.

So I stuck to the "good old" Procion dye

(I did that with a good friend some years ago)

Preparing the dye (with mouth cap and gloves)

Strands of cotton and silk waiting on cling film.

First one . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . then a lot more

waiting for 24 hours.

First harvest of the wonderful silk

(looks like normal cotton embroidery floss :

only 8 strands instead of 6,

and thinner !)

YUMMY !

Started with the second batch today !

:-)

dye

Last Saturday daughter and I visited the "Handwerkbeurs" in Rotterdam

(a crafts fair)

Daughter bought some lovely yarns for new knitting projects,

I, a book with patterns for tiny "Waldorf " dolls,

some beautiful variegated DMC,

some fat quarters of quilt fabric

and I collected a bag with stuff for Procion dyeing

that I had ordered in advance.

Today I had ( another ) fun day dyeing

with my friend W

( long ago she learned me a few bits and tricks about quilting )

On the first day we mixed the procion dye

with the thick gel, prepared screens with it

and let them dry for a couple of weeks.

Today came the second part : the actual printing on fabric

... on a well protected table !

The "break down" printing was fun !

The fresh gel dissolves by and by the dried dye on the screens

and gives prints that become gradually weaker as you go  

 After the screens were totally "worn out" we cleaned them

and also tried

printing with paper resists. 

Later on we have to steam iron the fabric

and wash out the excess dye.

( first mission accomplished ! ! )