Friday, July 27, 2007

(Attempted) Skin Tones Hand Dyes


Here's my attempt at a batch of hand-dyes for an up-coming portrait quilt.

I used Mellisa's recipe for skin tones on her excellent Fabric Dyeing 101 Blog/website. Here's what I was hoping for (Melissa's version) :

Mine didn't come out as rosey, and a lot more green. So what went wrong?

Could be temperatures. My workshop space may have gotten too cool by the time I stuffed in the fat quarters. I used Aurora Muslin--the good fabric, so fabric wasn't the issue.

I tried to map Melissa's dye colors to comparable options from ProChem. Maybe ProChem's Chino is more green?

Melissa's Dye Colors for Skin Tones from G&S Dye (Toronto) : Not quite equal at Prochem
Chino 600 : Chino 500N
Fuschia 408 : Fuschia 308
Golden Yellow 204 : Golden Yellow 104
Black 702 (greenish black) : Silk Black 610
Navy 512 : Navy 412


Other ideas? Please share ...

Maybe I'll overdye mine in Pink (my fuschia seemed to wash out in the rinse).
Maybe I'll save them for another project. They are pretty in their own right.
Maybe I'll purchase dyes from the company Melissa uses and see if I get better results on a second batch ...

1 comment:

~~ Melissa said...

Pretty but definitely not human skin tones! I have a few ideas about what might have happened. Perhaps you could email me?