Despite my “executive decision” to focus on a Natural Dye methods only for Assignment 2 the itch was ever present to try to fulfil just that bit more of the course, sometimes that need to explore and experiment can be exhausting, but nevertheless I enjoyed my brief foray into the world of chemical dyeing. What did I like about it? Well it just seemed so predictable and precise when compared to natural dyes and I was really quite amazed (even though I knew that was the main advantage) by the vast range of tones immediately available and the ability to lighten and darken shades by just minute adjustments to the dye mix.
I limited myself to just two colours, magenta and turquoise which could be blended endlessly to achieve many different tones and effects. I do have other colours however I felt even extending the range to three colours would take the range of possibilities way beyond what I had the time available to explore.
The ranges of samples are shown below, I used differing resist techniques as explored in an earlier post including tie dye, folding, knotting and scrunching up scrunching up.
I suppose I missed my vat! The dye was simply applied in various stages of dilution to wet cotton yarn and cloth, then left to fix for six hours, then rinsed. So the application is quick but the dye time is more lengthy. It’s straightforward for those who don’t want to stand for ages heating a vat, but have lots of patience to allow the colours to set in the fibres!
Firstly the cotton threads, before and after :-
Then the various fabric samples before then after :-
miriamwardtextiles 
Wowza! Amazing what you can get out of just 2 dyes. Do you ‘paint’ the dye in different places onto the yarn, or some other method?