More Colour Experiments

I did a few more low immersion dyeing experiments last week. I had some fibre reactive dyes which needed using up.  Dyeing protein fibres with fibre reactive dyes is a similar process as using acid dyes.  Slightly different percentages, and a bit of synthropol added to the mix.  Heat is needed to set the dyes on wool, rather than time as on cellulose fibres.   This multi-coloured batch is a bit larger than the others as well, as I had about 130 g of the same blend fibre left in 2 bags, which I combined. My main worry with this batch was the fibres were a bit crowded.  I had to be quite careful that the bottom layers of fibre were dyed adequately.   It turned out quite spectacularly for a random blend of colours.

I had enough old dyes for two experiments.  Then I took the time to mix up new dyes.   This is fuchsia and  turquoise.  It is 100 g, which seems to be a good amount in my pan for this type of dyeing.   It turned out quite lovely, with the bright but not glaring colours and gentle colour transitions.  I lay the roving in the pan in a zig zag fashion, across the narrow end of the pan and back again.  I poured the dyes on in layers or in rows, from lighter to darkest, in the pan, keeping the same back and forth motion with the dye application as I'd used with laying the fibre in the pan.  This one was fun to see take up and set.

 Oh, the brightness of this one.  This is for spinning on a dull, grey, winter day.   I used yellow and fuchsia, in random splotches.  It made my day when I pulled that out of the dye pot. 

The one below used fuchsia, blue and black.  It was also with the end lot of the old dyes.   I left a bit of white fibre on purpose for mellowing down the colours.   This is a blend which I'm betting looks awesome when spun.  I love to see how some of the fibre colours appear to change once they are spun.  The blending of the colours makes a lot of difference sometimes.

Today's experiment is solar dyeing.   Really, our weather in July was the prime time for solar dyeing, but I'm doing this at Westfield on Sunday, so thought a few experiments to show would be nice.  These two are using fibre reactive dyes.   I've also got food colours and the Kool-Aid powder that we found when my daughter and I were out fabric hunting in July.   I've lots of bits of fibre from random fleeces which I'm using.   

 I'll do up a post with a better explanation of the solar dyes, once I've got a few more samples.  The pink jar is leftovers from the last dye session and the multi coloured jar is just splashes of 3 different colours, applied to different areas of the fibre in the jar,  with a syringe