ENTWINEMENTS

 What concentration to make your stock soultions?

Again to follow up on what Peg said  that I used 0.01% stocks.  Well sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.  When I worked with stock solutions all the time , I usually made Lanaset Stocks at 1%.  The Lanaset, and most acid dyes, have limited solubility and 1% is achievable with most of the dyes without additives. Fiber reactive I usually make 2%, they are more soluble and require higher DOS.

When I started dyeing batches of 2500-3000g of silk the volume of stock was too large.
For example dyeing 3000g of silk, a medium DOS of 3% with stocks that are 1% requires

3000g x DOS of 3%/1% stock =9000g or mL of stock

9000mL= 9L 

That is a lot of stock!  Now I used to make the stock in 1/2 gallon canning jars, that would only hold 1800ml so this would be a big, big chore to make 9000ml of stock. It is easier just to weigh out the dyes  powders for each batch.  90g of dye, even if it is divided up into 5 colors is still doable  even with a balance that only weighs to 1g.

But dyeing 450g of silk to the same DOS would require 1350ml of 1% stock which is convenient.

But when I sample for new colors I dye 5g swatches of silk.  So the same formula

5g x DOS 3%/1% stock=15 g=15ml 

gives me 15ml of dye stock.  So what would the effect of a drop of dye stock solution falling off the out side of the pipet into the dye bath.  Now a drop of aqueous solution we can guess to be about 0.2 ml, and

Posted by Karren at 05:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Peg is  continuing her samples, now she mixed orange and blue. 

She talks about the using the Lanaset Mustard yellow, which I call Gold, instead of the Lemon Yellow.  Actually the gold is the work horse in any dye set.  In Lanaset dyes the 2 colors I buy the most are black (high DOS) and gold.  The Lemon Yellow is very weak tintorially and I only use use it when I must.

What does weak tintorially mean?  It means that you can't get a very high DOS with the color.  It means that if you add one drop of Royal Blue you will have green and even adding lots more yellow it is hard to get yellow green.  It means that when dyeing neutrals, a mix of red, blue and yellow, you will be in the pale range and it will be difficult to get the yellow based browns and golds.  In Lanaset I usually use the Gold to mix neutrals.  It is gives greater DOS and closer in tintorial strength to the reds and blues making a larger ranger of colors possible.

So when would I use the Lemon Yellow? (Warning:I am now going to use terms to describe the color from the Munsell Color Theory.) Lemon Yellow is a dye with high chroma, that is it is a clear, bright color.  Gold is a dye of much lower chroma, it is a dull color.  There is no way to brighten a color, that is increase its chroma.  So if I want a final color that has high chroma, that is bright, I must start with high chroma dyes.  So If I want to mix a bright Spring Green I would need to start with the Lemon Yellow but the Gold would be fine for olive.  Mixing colors always decreases the chroma, I don't know anyway, just mixing dyes, to increase the chroma.  Thus the chroma of the pure dyes of a set limit the brightness achievable with those dyes.  Thus one can not use Lanaset to mix neon colors.

So using Lanaset dyes,  I might use Lemon Yellow with a tad of Turquoise (both high chroma) to achieve a bright Spring Green. 

I might use Gold, Navy and Magenta (a red with black in it) to mix a dark Olive-- a deep, dull color. 

Sage Green might be Gold and Royal Blue.

 The terms hue, value and chroma are used to describe colors.  I learned this from Munsell Color Theory.  I had to work hard to understand color and the most critical step was the The New Munsell Student Color Set.

This set has a a booklet with the Theory and exercises, notebook,  and color  chips.  You have to glue the color chips in the right places.  In this glueing you will learn more about color that you thought there was to know.  You will see browns are oranges and how many browns there are. You will see that black and yellow give a green.  Your eye will be trained to to see more colors.

Posted by Karren at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Getting the color you want is an essential skill in dyeing, this is usually why you are dyeing. There are several components to this skill, at least in the way I think about it.  I could write an entry on each part but today I'll just mention them.

1. Knowing color.  This is more than red+yellow make orange.  It is the difference between mixing a bright tangerine orange and a dull terracotta, both oranges.  Some people know how to do this because they have spent a lifetime mixing paints; watercolors, acrylics or oils.  The one big difference between dyes and paints is that there is no white dye.  Your undyed cloth is your white.  I did not have a lifetime of painting so I had to go with a more formal study of color. 
   
2. Knowing your dyes.  This involves dyeing up each dye color that you will be using to mix your colors at two different DOS.  Few dye colors are the true colors were would like for mixing so you have to learn ift the red is bright or dull, the yellow is a tad red or green...  This is a time consuming step for some people but it is essential when you start with a new dye set.  Ideally should be done on your fabric; each fabric is a different white and the colors are slightly different as a result.
3. Testing.  Dyeing is in no way, a "what you see is what you" get endeavor. Some dye goes on the fabric some goes down the drain.  Wet and dry fabric look different.  Making samples is the sign of a good dyer.  To make samples work you need to kept accurate records so that you can later dye the project.

Peg in South Carolina at TALKING ABOUT WEAVING, is currently doing dye samples for her next project.

Here she has 7 hues at 2 different DOS.  You can see larger picture on her blog.  Now she is tackling chromatic neutrals, you know those wonderful neutrals that still have a tinge of  a color like blue grey or pinkish beige.

This series she got by combining yellow-green with red-violet.

Neutrals are always a challange when dyeing.  They are basically a very controlled mix of all 3 primaries--yellow, red and blue-- here the blue is combined with the other primaries (yellow+blue=yellow-green, red+blue= red-violet).  These colors can change a lot with one drop of dye; a drop of blue can change a color from brown to olive. 

I love these colors, the chromatic neutrals.  They are chamaeleon colors,one color  beside blue can look like goldish, then beside yellow  look mauve.  Joseph Albers  illustrated this effect in his studies. They are marvelous in multi-colored shibori dyeing since they increase the complexity of the color.

Posted by Karren at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Folding origami is the easy part. Dyeing it is the hard part. Getting dye thru all those layers is the challenge.
Dyes have different ease of penetration. I percieve the penetration to be the highest with fiber reactive dyes , so in orger of decreasing penetration

discharge (sulfur dioxide, a gas)
fiber reactives
acid dyes
indigo

My theory assumes that larger molecules penetrate less. Even so the book shows that good penetration can be achieved with even indigo. How do they do it?

First they buy ready-to-use indigo in a bottle:

Aren't you a wee bit jealous? I'd love to buy ready-to-use indigo.

Then they place the tied cloth in an appropriately sized plastic bag:

Then some ready-to-use indigo is added to the bag:

The air and blue indigo are removed from the bag and then the bag is clamped shut. This is the critical step-- having the bag totally filled with the indigo bath and no air. Here is another picture of a larger piece: left: expelling the air, right: then clamped.

Once you have the bag sealed, you can then massage the wad of cloth inside to increase the penetration.

This way they have achieved good penetration on dense cotton with even indigo.

Posted by Karren at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

In our push to get jackets ready for the last show I did 6 jackets in one batch, with more agitation than in the previous dye baths. The black came out great but the resists were not tight enough for the level of agitation. So when the threads were removed they looked like this:

Needless to say we did not take these to the show. We dyed some in a denim color afterwards and they came out nicely. But the lesson is that just changing one thing can change the result.

Another jacket that did not travel to the tropics, is one that had the hydrangea design:

One tiny hole and the whole jacket is ruined! This usually happens when the stitches are removed.

There was an African woman who attend the International Shibori Symposium in Santiago, Chile who was the best at a technique the involved embroidery stitches on a glazed cotton. The white cloth is embroidered with raffia then dyed, then the embridery stitches are remove. She was the best because she never cut the cloth. Quite a feat!

Here is one piece that has been done with raffia embroidery.

Posted by Karren at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

More sample, try 2. Revised formulas ( formulas are under the sample on the paper)-- more DOS for black but since there are no hue issues I went ahead and stitched a resist. I want the design to appear black and white and the cloth is very creamy, I think that it will read B&W but needed to test. Reformulated the blue and tried a kumquat color on this new fabric.

B&W looks good. Blue is closer but not there yet. Kumquat is too light and too yellow.

Reformulated the blue and kumquat and added fig, a lavender gray. Made some simple bindings on the blue sample. The binding worked well. I like all of the these colors. And I know that both stitching and binding work well with this fabric.

Did you notice the little yellow numbers on the samples. This is a neat pen; you write on the cloth before it goes into the dye bath and you can still read it after the cloth is dyed. Sure makes it easier to keep track of all my experiments in one dyebath.

Posted by Karren at 05:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am working on some colors on a new silk fabric; this requires that I adjust even old formulas. The new fabric is a silk noil; duller, matte and cream colored instead of true white like the china silk I usually use. I am working with Lanaset dyes.

To make the whole process so as painless as possible I mix up a large bucket of dye bath. This is easy for me since I add my additives based on the volume of the bath not on WOF. So 1g/L works for the samples and in the batch bath. I adjust the pH then just keep the bucket handy. When I want to dye a small sample I just dip out of the bucket and I’m ready to go.

Similarly I make up 0.1% Stock solutions to use (actually they were made the last time I was doing samples and since they keep well, so I just used them). I usually dye 5g swatches so the dilute stock helps with accuracy.

Then I use 3 flasks that I can put at the same time into a constant temperature bath. I have to stir by hand but a thermostat controls the temperature. So I set it at 40°C to start then to 60° and last to 85°C.

Here are 3 swatches I did in about 1 hour; black, purple passion and a new denim color. The black could be a little darker it has a bit of a charcoal effect. Swatch two looks good but the blue needs the hue blackened and value darkened.

Posted by Karren at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I promised you some pictures of finished things from our Dye Day. We did T's and cotton bandanas. In indigo we did fold & clamp (itajime), stitching (mokume) and binding.

Some pieces were more successful than others (per usual). We all seemed to forget that indigo does not penetrate very far -- the underside of a thick cotton jersey does not look nearly as blue as the exposed side does. Folding a T-shirt in half before making the resists protected the inside from the indigo. We did get some good areas (as hoped for). On our last Dye Day we used fiber reactive dyes that really penetrated.

Here are two shirts made with the same technique, but different styles.

I mixed up three fiber reactive colors and tried out the Dylon Black dye.

The Dylon black is really black but the lighter areas where the dye diffused in are definately blue. The tree is a stitched resist and the other is a combination of shibori -mountain path- with a tie-dye stained glass effect. Then there were some colors left over...

Used standard tie-dye techniques. Matching bandanas and T's.

And last was a request for a dragon.

And then the bag that wouldn't close got two drawstring put into it instead of one and it now closes tightly but in a line not a circle, and the bottom has a button.

I'm packing for my last show of the year, Crafts Park Avenue. Come and see some shibori.

Posted by Karren at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Glennis responded to my entry in a comment

*What qualities do those made by master-craftsman have that differs from that made by a hobbists/novice? I think of master-craftsman as someone who has explored in depth the process, perhaps the history of a craft and has spent substantial time practicing, learning and exploring their art form (oops-said the "A" word). A hobbyist/novice is breaking the surface but not necessarily devoted to the craft/practice by choice. The difference in the end result of the object is probably most apparent to the maker them self. I have seen exquisite works created by master-craftsman and hobbyists/novices alike-this is a difficult question for me to answer. *Are these objects endowed with properties that are a reflection of their maker's culture and times? I believe this is true. I love to wander museums and look at crafts from other places and times. I always fantasize about who the maker was and the environment in which the object was made often comparing it to objects in my daily life. Could I make it? Would I? Why? *Thus would the object have the same properties if she designed it and had it made in China/Thailand (you fill a country with low labor costs)? NO! Don't get me started on this one......this is a completely different thing in my book. I have seen the results of this many, many, many times. And its effects on 1.) the original maker, 2.) the end product , 3.) the marketplace. Even if you take an object and have it made by hand here, under your own supervision there is a difference. As artists, craftsman, hobbyists, and novices we choose our result and our path.

I do make things by hand and have no other source of income, so needless to say I've spent a few hours driving thinking about this. It sound to me like you are saying that there is no place in our market place for hand-made (in this case made start to finish by one person) in the US. The women in Ms. Shroff project spent from 3 mo. to a year making their panels. Lets assume that they spent the majority of their time taking care of their families and I have no such responsibilities, so I can make panels faster say one a month. Lets also asume that I want to earn $30 000 in the year, this is a modest income to pay for health insurance, a home and it's utilites, a car and taxes. That means that I must sell 12 panels (without incurring any marketing costs or the price will go up) for $2500 each.

Do you truly think there is a market for dozen $2500 textiles this year?

If not then one needs to think of a way to make more- such as help- or faster made products. If I have some one else iron them are they still hand-made? How about having the hems hand -rolled in China? Does the cloth need to be hand-woven? I think we need a better defintion of hand-made.

Posted by Karren at 09:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I attended a demonstration by a silk painter at a guild meeting the other day and was suprised to hear her talk about " water based silk dyes" which she steams but uses a "fixative" which simply needs to be ironed to fix. Apparently these are French "dyes".When someone tells me that something needs to be ironed to fix it, I usually interpret that as being a resinous substance similar to extender.

This has got me curious as I have used both acid dyes and reactive dyes on
silk but have always used the appropriate vinegar or soda ash. I must admit
I have never steamed anything.From what I could get out of her the dyes come
from France and are used by the fashion houses there to dye silk. I must
admit I was impressed with the strength of colour as well as the hand of the
fabric.

Does you have any idea what these "dyes" could be?

French silk paints or dyes (the terms paints and dyes are misused interchangeably) are usually acid dyes dissolved with the acid added. Others are pigments in a thin water suspension and are really paints; these are heat set with an iron.

The biggest problem with preparing acid dyes in this manner is that some colors won't dissolve enough to give a strong color so additives are used to increase the solubility of the dyes. Traditionally this has been alcohol, but breathing alcohol vapors all day can effect the human body so some companies now use other additives such as urea or glycols.

I think that ironing is a substitute for steaming or heat setting. Most times you get even more intense colors by steaming. Did you know that you can use a dryer to heat set dry textiles?

I don't know what the fixative is, could be something to change the pH to make it set faster or a very dilute binder like those found in textile paints. The ones I've seen are thin like water.

You can make your own from the acid dyes you already have.

For further reading steam vs. chemical fixative,

Posted by Karren at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I had a question the other day about how to get a dark color with indigo. The answer is many dips, But words are not nearly as effective as a picture, sweetgeorgia posted a picture of 10 dips . Scroll down to the 2nd picture and you can see the progression from 1 dip (lt. blue) to 10. Looks to me like some are dry and some are wet and wet makes cloth look darker, even so you get the idea. Indigo is not for the one-shot-mamas.

Posted by Karren at 01:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I have made a few posts (i, ii, iii, iv) about using a black dye to get black and white shibori. You want a true, deep black and white (determined by the whitness of the cloth you are dyeing) and of course, shades of grey. What you don't want is shades of blue or pink or halos of purple--that is any color. There have been success and failure; not an easy task to get B&W.

Fiber influences your chance of success; both Neki and I have achieved it on silk. My failures have been on cotton.

The dye also effects the outcome; we had success with Lanaset Black and Dylon Ebony Black. Now Lanaset is an acid dye and acid dye families usually have a black manufactured color (not a mixture of other colored dyes) . The Lanaset one is a true black,some from other acid dye families have a cast, say purple for example. So the Lanaset one is special. There are probably other true black acid dyes that I don't know, there are a lot of acid dyes. Now fiber reactive dyes, commonly used for cotton, do not usually have a black manufactured color and the black is mixed from navy, gold and red. The mixed black then separates during shibori, rather like chomotography, leading to colored halos. The mixed fiber reactive black might be beautiful in an immersion dyebath, or in direct application but they give us trouble in shibori. But there tend to be several mixed blacks and each may be designed for a specfic application process; the pad-batch black might be different than a immersion bath black. Fiber reactive dyes also work on silk (standard processing) and so you might find a silk black and a cotton black (here there are 8 blacks/greys for the old fiber reactive dyes, Procion MX).

While I was out buying notions to finish up the outfits for Artwear in Motion I saw some Dylon dye, black that had worked so well for Neki. So I am now the proud owner of 1.75 oz. of #12 black. From the package I learned it contains trisodium phosphate and reactive black 5. I suspect that this means it contains one dye that is black, not a muixture of dyes. I can't wait to try it on cotton!

Posted by Karren at 07:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Neki over at A Movable Feast has been having trouble with black and shibori similar to the B&W on cotton here (part 1, part 2). She is working with silk;

Yesterday I took my "real black" dye and shiboried and dyed a piece of silk hoping to get super black on white.This will later become inserts for my red top which is in process right now.
To make a frustrating loong story short" real black" my eye. It dyed with a hideous reddish overcast. Will have to overdye with navy to try and kill the red..................Arashi means storm and we have had a lot of that recently.It was forseeable after such a hot summer......One thing I discovered was that a black MX dye that had been reported in various forums as being it didn't meet the grade, separating and haloing during immersion dyeing like crazy. Back to my trustworthy never failing Dylon black.

So now we know Lanaset black and Dylon will both work for silk shibori, giving a true black and white.

Posted by Karren at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It's easy to get excited dyeing indigo shibori at the Textile museum in DC and the event 1 July.
Indigo is ideal for first shibori projects because it is so easy to resist. And the fuzzy edges have nice gradations. The hard part is the indigo vat---the second time you set up a vat it is straight forward. But now there is instant indigo, a freeze dried mixture that contains indigo, alkali and reducing agent and all you have to do is dissolve it. Here is an excellent description of its use. I bought my instant indigo from John Marshall, who was one of the first to sell it here in the US. Others sell it now in smaller quanities,Paraside Fibers. I would probably call Earthues and order indigo from Michele Wipplinger.

Once you feel comfortable with the indigo vat, it is cheaper just to buy regular indigo. Michele at Earthues has an indigo kit, her instructions are the best!

Posted by Karren at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We had a DYE DAY yesterday and I tried the new Procion MX dye from Pro-Chem , #609. I got cold feet about trying it on my carefully stitched T-shirt because of my previous experience.

Continue reading "More about black and white" »

Posted by Karren at 04:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I wrote an article for SHOPTALK, a column in the Surface Design Association's newsletter called A Dye by Any Other Name... that is interesting to any one trying to dig out technical information on dyes.

Posted by Karren at 04:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tomorrow we will have a DYE DAY here at the studio. This is a day when we dye for ourselves. We also invite a few nearby friends and occasionally one shows up.

I hope to get some black and white T-shirts to expand my summer wardrobe. It needs to be black and white, with maybe shades of grey but black, white, grey and pink would not be acceptable.

Getting black with any dye can be a challenge. It is easy to get dark grey but getting dark enough to get a black, ahh--- that is a real achievement. Then there is the color of black--- some blacks have a blue cast, others a red cast. Getting a neutral black is another piece of the puzzle. For me, getting black on cotton is much more difficult than getting black on silk. This is because the acids dyes that I use have a manufactured color that is a neutral black. Fiber reactives dyes, that are commonly used on cottons, have no black dye.

So a black fiber reactive dye for cotton has to be a mixed color; typically navy, gold and some red. Getting the right mix for this substrate and for this dyeing process is tricky. It is not a simple as buying a mixed black, a small change in process, say letting the dye-bath cool during processing instead of holding the temperature constant, can change the relative fixing of each dye color and the black has a red cast. So there are many different black mixes available and I have at least 3 different formulas that I mix myself.

Getting black and white, on cotton, in shibori is even more complicated. Shibori depends on diffusion of the dye for its fuzzy edges and each dye has a rate of diffusion dependent on its molecular structure (this is the basis of chromotography). Since a black mix has 3 dyes with 3 different molecular structures, the dyes tend to separate when they diffuse creating halos of different colors.

Continue reading "Black and white on cotton" »

Posted by Karren at 08:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

This is my shibori on cotton T-shirts. Indigo and shibori are natural partners. The Japanese shibori still being made in Arimatsu Shibori is mostly indigo on white cotton. I am including some simple instructions for making an indigo vat. This article was orginally written and published as a SHOPTALK article in the newsletter published 4 times a year by the Surface Design Association. Indigo is not a simple subject so I expect to revisit it.

Continue reading "Indigo and a Simple Vat" »

Posted by Karren at 08:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)