Candied Fabrics Lesson 3 : The First Triad - Brights

 

 

Last weekend, I worked on dyeing the first 66 colors from 3 primaries in Candy G's Controlling Color online dyeing class.   We're dyeing swatches to build her Candiotic Table of Color.  Candy is currently running an online class on the topic.  Sign up here.  The class is designed to work at your own pace, so you can sign up anytime.

Really!  All those colors at the top came from 3 basic primaries!

 3 primaries in the cup mixed in varying proportions to make ...  

 Teal!

 Or Scarlet

 Or Midnight Blue!

It was exciting (and seemingly magical!) to see the colors emerge from the 3 basic primaries : Intense Violet, Scarlet, Midnight Blue --and many others.  And no overpowering Fuschia!  I feel like Candy is revealing the Secrets to the Color Universe to me!  The world is opening wide.  I felt like this when I learned how to free-motion quilt, too!

Other thoughts on the process :
*  Working with a dye stock is new to me.  Previously, I've just mixed up what I planned to use in that day's session.  I'm discovering that I was wasting quite a bit of dye that way.
*  I thought I was doing low-water immersion dyeing before, but this is really low-water immersion--like there's just enough water to keep the fabric moist, but not swimming in the dye bath.
*  Weighing grams vs. teaspoons by volume seems to be the solution to my problem with Fuschia over-powering everything it touched in the past.  It's denser, 1 tsp goes farther than a teaspoon of a less dense dye.  By weighing out grams, it's puts them all on a more even footing.
*  As suggested in the class, I used a krinkle rotary cutter to cut the fat quarters for the gradation dyes in the last post.  This worked beautifully!  After washing and drying in the laundry room, there was only 1 small tangle to pull off the tumble-dried fabric--and that came from a previously torn edge.  That little tidbit alone was worth the price of admission for the class!

*  Yes, she's serious about keeping your swatches a safe distance from the mixing area.  I was feeling pretty comfortable with the process at this point and squirted the dye stock into the cup with just a little too much gusto. It splashed up and hit my "clean" swatches.  This batch was re-done and re-labeled with a clean set.

 

Here's a sample of the Tyvek labels and how they survived the process.  A little rust, but that's no big deal.