More Dylon Experiments

Saturday was a beautiful day to dye
fabrics - up until 5:30 about when
it started to get cloudy and then rain,
I mean like downpour!

Frustrated, I had to grab all of my
fabric and start to clean up my mess.

I lost my notes! I always keep notes
when I'm dyeing fabric so that I know
what I did to a certain piece in case
I want to do it again - or not.

Since it was a nice day; I decided to
try four colors - Amazon Green, Ocean
Blue, Tulip Red and Sunflower Yellow.

I squished the fabric into containers
with a small amount of dye.

I use the dowel to turn the fabric - I have to
remember buy more.

The fabrics that I used were Kona white, unbleached
muslin and broadcloth - the only broadcloth that
was left in the shop was 65% polyester 35% cotton.
I was unsure how this would take the dye -
I guessed probably lighter. All were washed in
very hot water.

The reason that I squished the fabric with
very little dye is that I wanted to get that
mottled look.

click on the photo for a larger view

First of all I noticed when uploading the photos
that the colors are not true. I'll have to adjust
the settings on my camera.
This is the look that I was going for - I thought
it looked like a jungle - so I transferred the
top of a tiger's head. cute
I also didn't iron the fabric because I'm doing
a separate experiment with this look. I used
the unbleached muslin here.

Be sure to check out Trish's Dylon Post

Still using Amazon green here - again the colors
do not look true to me. The bottom piece is
much greener. The top piece is unbleached
muslin and the bottom is Kona white.

I would like to answer here something that
Serena had a question about the
feel of the fabric after it's dyed. The dye
does not change the feel at all but the paint
(Setacolors) do. The paint sits on top of
the fabric where as the dye penetrates.
I'm not sure of the exact way to say it - yet.

Ocean Blue - I used Kona white for the two.
The bottom one - I twisted the fabric and
let it sit in the dye. This is one of my favorites.

This is Tulip Red - both the top and bottom
I used Kona white and the middle is the
broadcloth, polyester and cotton blend.
You can see that it's much lighter than
the other two.

With this one - I laid the fabric down in
a long pan - I put on it "tulip red" and
in the corner I drizzled "ocean blue" -
I just wanted to see what would happen;
I thought maybe the colors would blend
and make purple. Maybe I waited too
long to apply the blue - I wish I could
find my notes!

I'm almost sure I used the unbleached muslin
for these two. They were squished in the container
also to get that mottled look. This is Sunflower Yellow.


In a previous post that I wrote - I think it was
when I did the zig-zag quilt. I had mentioned
that I wanted to try using Fusible Batting.

So I went out and bought some and thought
first; I'll use it on my practice pieces where
I make quilt sandwiches for my free motion
exercises.

I used one of the Burnt Orange pieces that
I previously dyed with Dylon and ironed
on the Fusible Batting. I was baffled to see
that some of the glue from the batting was
coming through the fabric!

See those vertical lines? That's the glue!
I have used this batting previously and
have had no problem with it. So my question
would be - Does it only do this on dyed fabric?
It works fine on my painted fabric.



Here's a bag that I did:

Isn't that pretty? This bag is a design from Jackie's Desighns (Posh) bags
Jackie has a Yahoo group and the bag above was done
in one of her Sew Alongs.
The pink fabric is my dyed fabric using SetaColors.

So with all of this fabric that I dyed and painted
it will be used for my bags, applique and art quilts.
I'm starting to accumulate quite a stash already.

Dylon Dyes

We have had so much rain and when
it's not raining it's very windy. Not
good days for me to dye fabric.

Today is a good day and I'm taking
advantage of it!

I dye fabric on my deck and use lots of
drop cloths. Messy ain't it? But it's also
so much fun.

Today I tried Dylon Dye. I have wanted to
try this dye ever since reading about it on
Trish's blog Hand Dyed Fabric & Threads.

Normally I used SetaColor paints as
a dye because I'm intimidated by powdered
dyes. But I found the Dylon dye very easy
to use.

So today I tried "Burnt Orange" and here's
the results:

See that white piece of fabric in there? The package
said NOT suitable - Pure polyester but did I listen?
This polyester had a silk finish so I just wanted
to test it. As you can tell it didn't take the dye.

Hanging out to dry.

#2 is unbleached muslin - it absorbed more
of the dye - it's much darker
#3 is cotton broadcloth - much lighter
#1 - After #2 &3 was sitting in the dye bath
for one hour - in what was left I put #1 into it.

I like how it came out in different shades.
With one package I used 3 one quarter yards
of fabric. I have another piece one-eighth
of a yard that I experimented
with and was disappointed with the results.

Here's what I did:

I sewed the ends to make it a shibori and then
I folded the fabric and poured the dye on top.
(This was the left over dye)

You can't see where I sewed but you can see
somewhat of where I folded.

In case you're not familiar with what I mean by
Shibori - here's one that I did last year.

You can see where I stitched the fabric and
then pulled on the thread to bunch it up.
This was done with the SetaColor paints.

I don't know why it didn't work with the
Dylon.
If the weather holds out; I'll try to dye
more fabric this week with the other
colors that I bought.