Mixed Colors

Those first pure colors screamed so much that I longed to create something subtle. The resulting mixed colors look a little dull to me now, but every color has its place.


These are all the same dye, a little color I call squid ink green. The large squares are 10"x10". (Next time I'll set a quarter or something on the fabric, so you can see the scale.) The smaller square was dyed in its own cup, with diluted dye. For the one on the left I crumpled the fabric and set it on top of the liquid in which the darkest one was submerged, like this:

I made squid ink green from 4 parts Fuchsia, 2 parts Turquoise, 2 parts Better Black, and 1 part Lemon Yellow. (All capitalized color names are Dharma Trading Company's colors. Italics refer to my own creations.)


I don't usually go for salmon pinks, but that one on the upper right pleases me. Unfortunately that was improvised, no notes on how I did it. The four yellow-pink-white ones I call sun salmon squirt. Those were crumpled in a small box and I squirted some mixed pinks and yellows with a syringe.


To one of them I've already added a resist of gel glue, and it's in some Periwinkle dye bath right now.


I know neutrals are hard to accomplish because they require a precise balance. I tried my had at an ivory. It came out too definitively yellow, but not a bad first attempt. I used Lemon Yellow, a tiny tiny bit of one of the blues, and a bit of Fire Red. As the fabric went in, the dye looked the color of tea.


I LOVE THIS!!!


But have no idea how I did it. Probably a Fuchsia-Fire Red mix and some Better Black, but maybe it was some Turquoise-Cerulean mix.

Here are a few more colors, with what notes I have about their formulas:

quiet rose: 5 parts Fuchsia, 5 parts Fire Red, 1 part Better Black, 1 part Lemon Yellow.


tired wine: 10 parts Fuchsia, 10 parts Fire Red, 3 parts Better Black, 2 parts Lemon Yellow, and a pinch of Turquoise. This is very close to the proportions for quiet rose.

dull teal: some combination of Cerulean and Lemon Yellow, with some Fire Red.

lemon jade: some combination of Lemon Yellow, Cerulean, Turquoise, a little Better Black and a pinch of Fire Red.