Northern Lights Hand-Dyed Swing Dress

Northern Lights Swing Dress 

Dancing with Sophie, who doesn't look so impressed.

I am so pleased with the way this turned out!  It was a pleasant surprise, too.
It looks like the Northern Lights shimmering in the night sky!
I think I might add some beads to the collar line -- maybe some hematite with a few sparkles.

Here it is from the back. 

The dress is a simple Swing Dress blank from Dharma, made of rayon.  These are cool and comfortable in summer.  I have a few others I've worked up before. [See the Watermelon Dress.]

PHOTO Sketch
This is what i had in mind.  Purple on top and a turquoise / ice blue on the bottom with some white in between.

Dyer's Notes

I soaked the dress in soda ash solution while I mixed the dyes. The soda ash fixes the dye, so that it doesn't wash out.  It's an important part of this process, and one you can't skip.

I picked one of the many pre-mixed purples (Grape?) from my old stock of Procion dye.  I didn't like how it mixed initially, so I added some deep navy until I liked what I saw.    For the blue, I went with the teal blue that gave me such a nice denim blue on the wool yarn a few days ago. 

I  tied off the waistline with a plastic bag around it, so that it would resist the dye.  It didn't work very well, and I absolutely love this bit of serendipity how the colors bled and mixed with each other!

Northern Lights Dress in the Dye Pot

On the low-water immersion dye board, it looked so saturated that I didn't think I'd get any texture out of it at all.  I had it scrunched up on the board to make lots of peaks and valleys for the dye to penetrate (or not).

Once I added the color, I let it sit for about 18 hours.  If you want any texture, it's a good idea to let it sit, and don't disturb it too much.  Otherwise you'll get a very uniform color saturation with little or no texture -- sometimes you want that, but it's good to know how to get it when you want it.

I probably flipped it over when I got up in the morning.  Since the dress is a double layer of fabric, I didn't want one side to be too different from the other -- which can happen with a double layer.

Into the microwave for 2 minutes to help it heat set. Yes-- I have an old microwave relegated to the basement for non-food purposes.  Perfect for dye jobs like this.

The next step is to do an initial rinse in COLD water to wash out the soda ash.  Once that is rinsed out (It feels slippery), you can begin rinsing in hot water.  Some instructions will say to keep rinsing until the water runs clear.  I tend to fill the pot (or at least enough to cover the dyed cloth), and let it sit a few hours.  Then dump the water, and repeat with another round of hot water.  I do this until it runs nearly clear.  It seems like that's a better use of water.

Then it goes into the washing machine for a proper wash to get out any remaining dye.
I used to use that special Synthropol soap for this stage, but it seemed like it was very hard on the new color I'd worked so hard to add, making them come out kind of tired looking and used.  Now I save the Synthropol for scouring only (That is pre-washing your dry goods to remove anythng that might interfere with it taking up the dye.)

Since this dress is made of rayon, I let it drip dry.  The fiber sort of tenses up when it's wet, but relaxes when dry.  Quite a phenomenon, really.

I could add some additional surface design -- stamps or stencils.  I'll have to think about that ...
I think the beads around the color is the way to go.  Keep it simple and elegant!

 

I love these summer Swing dresses from Dharma. 
They are so comfortable, you can dance in them!

Voila!