Simulation, and sample prep

It has occurred to me that perhaps I don’t have to do double weave for my devore.  In fact, I’ll get a more interesting effect if I weave a separate fabric to hang behind the devore, and just tack them loosely together in spots so the two layers can shift slightly as the wearer moves.  This will give additional “motion” and variation to the leaf motifs, and will free me from some of the constraints imposed by using double weave.  Currently I am visualizing something like this:

(You’ll have to imagine the layers shifting as the wearer moves.)

The top layer is the white and beige wavy pattern, burned out in areas to reveal the brightly colored bottom layer.  Cross-dyeing will allow me to have the different leaf colors, and of course it is easy to change structures in sections of the fabric as long as the threading remains the same – so I can have wholly different patterns in each of the leaves.  I’ll almost certainly use different weave structures, but you get the idea.

(I posted to a couple of mailing lists, by the way, and found out the correct name for the technique I’ve been calling “differential dyeing” is actually “cross-dyeing”.   So that’s what I’ll use from now on.)

Actual weaving of samples is on hold, alas, until I get some cotton-wrapped polyester thread in.  As the cheapest source I’ve found is in Georgia, it may take some time for it to arrive.

Meanwhile…

I have finished weaving off the 13-yard tencel warp, mostly in alpaca weft, in eight or nine patterns.  I have decided to cut up my samples, which are mostly 12×18″ after wet-finishing, into eight swatches approximately 6×4.5″, and do eight test-dyes on each sample.

Here are the eight things I want to try:

1. Low contrast fiber-reactive and low-contrast acid dye
   1. Scrunch-dye in turquoise and blue fiber-reactive dye
   2. Scrunch-dye in fuchsia and fuchsia-violet acid dye
2. High contrast fiber-reactive, low-contrast acid dye
   1. Arashi shibori in fiber-reactive dye, blue
   2. Scrunch-dye in fuchsia and fuchsia-violet acid dye
3. High-contrast fiber reactive, high contrast acid
   1. Arashi shibori in fiber-reactive dye, blue
   2. Solid color acid turquoise dyebath
   3. Arashi shibori in fuchsia dye
4. Imagery: low contrast fiber-reactive background, simple figure on low-contrast background in acid dyes
   1. Scrunch-dye in brown and black fiber-reactive dye
   2. Scrunch dye yellow and red acid dyes
   3. Stencil brown maple leaf (inverse or regular) with acid dyes
5. Imagery: low-contrast fiber-reactive background, complex figure in acid dyes
   1. Scrunch-dye in turquoise and blue fiber-reactive dye
   2. Stencil horse or silkscreen running tiger in acid dyes
6. Imagery: simple figure in fiber-reactive dyes overlapping simple figure in acid dyes
   1. Stencil inverse maple leaf in color turquoise, fiber-reactive
   2. Stencil maple leaf in color fuchsia, fiber-reactive
   3. Stencil inverse maple leaf, overlapping, in color purple, acid
   4. stencil maple leaf in color yellow, overlapping, acid
7. Imagery: simple figure in discharge paste on a complex background
   1. Scrunch-dye in turquoise and blue fiber-reactive dye
   2. Scrunch-dye in fuchsia and purple acid dye
   3. Apply discharge paste using DIFFERENT maple leaf stencil, discharge color
   4. Using dye stencil, stencil in yellow/red in fiber-reactive and acid dye
8. Imagery: complex figure in discharge paste on simple background
   1. Scrunch-dye in turquoise and blue fiber-reactive dye
   2. Scrunch-dye in fuchsia and purple acid dye
   3. Apply discharge paste using DIFFERENT complex stencil (a second running tiger?), discharge
   4. Dye (or not) using contrasting colors, as appropriate.

I spent this afternoon writing up detailed instructions for myself, so I’ll be able to work efficiently once I get started.  I also cut most of the samples up into squares – eight fairly complex patterns plus a 3/1 twill and a 2/2 twill will give me eight dye patterns on ten weave structures, for a total of 80 samples from this batch.  (The mind reels!)

Anyway, tomorrow’s primary focus will be finishing the first dye run, which will be fiber-reactive dyes.  There will be a total of five dye/discharge processes in this set of samples – fiber reactive, followed by acid, followed by discharge, followed by redyeing one set of samples with both acid and fiber-reactive dyes.  So I expect this to take me all week.  Complicated, but fun.