Monday 18 December 2006

Dying to have a go

About six weeks ago I took part in a Francis Pickering workshop. Whilst talking about her own work, Francis told us that she usually dyes all her own threads to match her colour theme. I decided to have a go myself and purchased a range of undyed silk and cotton threads, some white silk ribbon, and some dye. This weekend I managed to find some time to play a little. I first did a test on some Coats crochet cotton. I was pleased with the resulting pale turquoise and lilac. Encouraged I divided the treads into three batches. I dyed one batch each with the turquoise and lilac dye. The third batch I used both dyes one at each end of the dish, blending them in the middle. After setting the dye and washing them, I found that the colour was much more intense on the silk than on the cotton. The colours, especially the purple are beautiful, but not what I had intended at all. Never mind, a friend of mine says that things like this are not mistakes, but design opportunities!

Happy Stitching

3 comments:

Debra Dixon said...

Beautiful threads! I can see how these would be very lovely on your fabrics.

coral-seas said...

Thank you, Debra. The project I had in mind for them is in the pastel shades of turquoise and lilac. As much as I love the results, I think the darker purple and blue will have to wait for another project. Oh dear, that means I will have to buy (or dye) some more silk. What a shame!

CA

NormaH said...

Fairly new to dyeing threads, ribbons and laces myself I find it very exciting to see the end results. Love your colors.