Dyeing Again : Revisiting an Old Class with Candied Fabrics

 Tints of Grape

Tints are where you mix in white -- or in this case -- water, to lighten the base hue.

I purchased access to this online class, Dyeing Multicolor Fabric, back in 2014 or 2015, but haven't taken the time to really dig into it.  Candy G. provides many hours of expert video instruction coupled with the recommended hands-on time in our own studios.   On top of that, she is very accessible, and responsive to questions.  Since I bought the class all those years ago, I've decided that winters are just too cold to be in the basement slogging through the lessons, and summers haven't been hot enough to drive me down there (the only cool spot in our house)-- until this a few weeks ago.  Yes -- you've seen me dyeing yarn and some clothing recently.  That gave me the push to learn more about creating multi-color palettes, and combining colors.

If you want to mix your own colors from primaries, I highly recommend Candie's Dyeing 101 class for Controlling Color, where you create The Candiotic Table (Think of The Periodic Table of Elements) and develop color mixing recipes from 3 or 6 primary colors.   This single class was a game-changer for me, and blew the door open on being able to mix and recreate specific colors.   I often refer back to those tables as references for what colors I can mix myself, without buying multiple prepared colors.  Then again -- The serendipity approach can be fun to experiment with, too!

Last summer I had good intentions -- bought the supplies and prepared the fabric.  I think I might have even watched some of the first lessons.  But I never quite got around to dyeing ...  I'd also forgotten just how much preparation needs to happen BEFORE you can get to pouring color on fabric.  Most of this afternoon was spent cutting the fabric into the required parcels (It was already pre-washed / scoured from lat summer), soaking it in soda ash solution, mixing up the dye concentrates, and pleating or scrumbling the fabric parcels to get interesting textures. 

This weekend, I'm starting with the monochromatics -- That's where you take 1 color and mix varying intensities of that 1 color from darker to lighter, and throw all of that onto the same piece of cloth.   This technique alters the value of the color.  You never have to worry about the colors clashing, because it's always the same base color, just different depths of tints, shades, and tones.

Past supper time, I was finally getting to where I could measure out the dyes in the required tints to finally pour the grape tints on the fabric.  These will batch overnight.  Hopefully, I'll get through 4 more sets tomorrow night after work--

Worked through Tints of Grape (see photo at the top of this post)

and Shades of Turquoise.

Shades are where you add black to darken a base hue.

Next time, I'll show you the mixed color pallets!