Super Solid Colors

I dyed over 40 sample squares on Thursday, Whew!

I started the rinse out Friday morning, and had to leave the rest until today. The last few are having their final soak as I type.

First, the single colors...


I already tested Cerulean and Fuchsia, so today I did Fire Red, Lemon Yellow, Turquoise, and Better Black. These are all the Dharma Trading Company color names. I capitalize them to indicate they are proper names. Soon I'll put all the color reference stuff in its own post.



Aren't they cute!


These are still wet and only partially rinsed out. These are 200%, 100%, 50%, 16%, 4%, and 2%, where 100% is ½ / 1 / 1½ teaspoons of red / blue / yellow-or-black dye per 1/4 yard of fabric. These are 5"x5" squares, crammed into a 2 oz cup holding about 1 oz of liquid.

Ooh those are some scary colors! The Lemon Yellow looks like it might bite, and the Turquoise could smack you right across the room. But those are primaries, so of course they scream and yell. Modulating their voices is my job.

And they aren't as bright once they're thoroughly rinsed. The Turquoise and the Better Black took the biggest hit.



I leafed through my old copy of Dye Painting (no longer in print), by Ann Johnston. She says that turquoise always washes out, making the color untrue as you paint with it. Any black that contains turquoise will have the same problem. Looking at the Cerulean before & after in this post, there's some washout too, especially in the really saturated samples. I suspect that the low-immersion dye method may leave more unreacted dye in the fabric than other methods.

Next time I'm going to keep trim off some small samples before completely rinsing.

And look what the heat of the iron does to the yellow samples...



The pair on the left have been ironed on one half and are still hot. Happily, the color goes back to normal once the fabric has cooled, as you see on the right.

Next post will show the mixed colors and the space dye stuff.