Earth and Sky Triads : Another Candiotic Table of Periodic Color

The past few weeks, I've been working on dyeing the swatches for a 2nd Candiotic Table with 2 other sets of  primaries.   See the Brights & Naturals Table here.  Again, it amazes me how many colors can come out of 3 simple primaries (in this case 66 swatches per set of primaries).  And I haven't even gotten into shades and tones here--that's the next couple lessons.

If you're interested in learning how to do this, Sign up here for the online class with Candy G. at Candied Fabrics.

A few notes on the making of this table :

Sky Triad Primaries :
Lemon Yellow (ProChem)
Boysonberry (ProChem)
Sky Blue (Dharma)

Earth Triad Primaries :
Golden Yellow (ProChem)
Strongest Red (ProChem)
Deep Navy (ProChem)
Quite a range with all these choices, isn’t there?
Yes, I love color and texture, too!

* Lots of gorgeous dark, earthy colors -- blues, grays, browns.  Rich!


* Lots of nice purples in the sky set, too.


* It was a worthwhile exercise doing these extra 2 sets for the additional colors and recipes.  

*Some of the colors were so dark in the earth set, I thought they would get lost if I mounted in on black felt.  So for this round, I went with the recommended white felt.  However, the local felt that I was able to buy was not wide enough.  I didn't want to wrestle with a bulky seem rippling the background, so I butted the edges together and used a bridging stitch :

  
 However, I was afraid that might pull apart in future ...  so I found this fusible tape intended for joining batting.  It worked like 2 charms!   It seems strong and reinforces the seam, without adding bulk.  It also stays pliable.  I was also concerned about not making that seem stiff with additional layers of  fusible.  I think this was a good choice for extending the background field of felt.

Next lesson is color wheels ...

Almost Done ... The Candiotic Table

 

I couldn't wait anymore ...  I spent 3 hours last night fusing the swatches to the black Kunin felt.  Even though it's synthetic, it worked fine to spot weld each swatch initially and then really go over it with a pressing cloth.  

It was a kind of meditation to really study and consider each color swatch while I fused it.  There are some lovely colors and textures on this table.   Mmmmhhhhh!   Tonight when I got home from work, I went into my studio and just sat by it.  It radiates a warmth that is really nice!

Yes, I went with the black felt, rather than the white background.  The comments from classmates were unanimous : Go with the black!  Thank you for your input!  These sets are not so dark as to get lost on the dark background.    

The teacher raised a question about the possibility of the black background shadowing through the lightest colors (the yellows), so I did some tests:
 

There was indeed a difference with the yellows.  This is easily remedied by adding a layer of light muslin behind the yellows as a buffer.

I also tested the lighter squares around the yellow corners, but there appeared to be no discernable difference to my eyes.  Thus, only the yellow corners got the treatment.

There are 2 swatches that I need to re-do.


The first time it came out very green.  I must have looked at the recipe wrong and put in yellow and blue instead of yellow and red.   I re-did it once already, a week after the initial set, and I got this salmon color.  Still not quite right.  It sticks out like a sore thumb in the table.


What went wrong?  I have some ideas ...
Possibility #1 : Was the dye stock stale, or weakening after a week?
Possibility #2 : Because my dye studio is in in my 45-degree-F basement (brrr!), I elected to  pop this single cup into the microwave (dedicated for dyeing) for 30 seconds.  It was enough to melt the cup, and sufficiently steam the the swatch.  That may have been a confounding factor.  The melting cup effect never happened when I had 10 other cups in the microwave.
Other Possibilities? Anyone care to weigh in?

This was the last swatch I had to fuse last night.  I was in a rush--my husband was calling me to walk dogs.  I knew I had to add an extra layer of muslin to the back for the color correction / shadow issue.  But I wasn't thinking and I fused an extra layer of Wonder Under onto the existing layer of fusible.  Then I had to add the muslin with final layer of fusible.  That makes 3 layers when only 2 were needed.  It got a little stiff, thick and rumpled.  Easy enough to fix. 

It may take a few days to get the newly dyed squares affixed to the final table.  Stay tuned!

I am hooked!  This is so beautiful!  A wonderful color tool! 
I'm planning to do 2 more sets of primaries.  Candy calls them the Earth and Sky Triads.  Just need to order the other primaries!

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.