May 18, 2015

A small dyeing interlude

In the midst of a long, slow process of doing trials on a large work in progress, I took some time out to dye a couple of T-shirts, one for myself, and one for a young friend.  First I dyed both shirts turquoise, then in a second step added pattern with black.  The patterning on the first shirt was done by loosely folding the dyed shirt diagonally, and then dripping black dye over the folds.

 And here's the shirt I made for myself, in a different process that I was trying out for the first time.  I like how it came out!

 Here's the set up (photo below):  I tipped a print board (foam insulation board, covered with fabric, and then a sheet of plastic) by resting it against a box of books, with the bottom edge draining into the blue lid of a large storage box.  I pinned the bottom edge of the turquoise shirt to the top edge of the board, scrunching the shirt into vertical folds.  (The shirt is wet at this point, so the folds hold.)  Then with a bottle of black dye, I squeezed on some dye, working from the top of the board (the bottom edge of the shirt), aiming to have the bottom edge mostly black, but leaving the neckline turquoise.  The photo shows the shirt about 12 hours after the application of dye (time needed for the dye to batch).  If I had taken a photo immediately after the application of the dye, you would see that the dye travelled quite a way down the shirt after the application, something I hadn't taken into account--I was thinking more turquoise would be left at the top.  But I do like how it came out, so no problem.


1 comment:

  1. I like the vertical emphasis of the t-shirt you made for yourself with its "thin" effect. Lovely! Is the first one the same arrangement as the orange-red-black t-shirts you previously made for yourself & then for me?

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