I did a few more dyebaths yesterday. Here is what I’ve done:
From top to bottom, they are:
- tram silk, 70% Polar Red and 30% Golden Yellow WashFast acid dyes, immersion dyebath with acid
- tram silk, Cibacron F Scarlet, fiber-reactive process with soda ash
- tram silk, Cibacron F Orange, fiber-reactive process with soda ash
- 140/2 silk, Lanaset Sun Yellow, immersion dyebath with acid
The two skeins in the photo are not dry yet, so they will be several shades lighter once dry.
(I spent four hours winding the orange pirn. Pretty pathetic output for four hours of labor, isn’t it? Especially considering the number of knots in it!)
Meanwhile, a good chunk of time has been spent on the house. We have now laid down sheets of thick paper followed by four inches of compost on the mostly-dead weeds in the front lawn. The theory, at least, is that the paper will smother the weeds and the compost will act as mulch and as a soil (of sorts) for the lawn we’re about to plant, a mix of clover and grass. (Mike is very big on including the clover, both because he likes it and because the nitrogen-fixing clover will help feed the grass.) Neither of us is wild on lawns, seeing them as a waste of space and water, but we need something to replace the weeds and we don’t have time to plan anything more extensive right now. The hardwood floor is going in this week, and we move in four weeks, so our focus is packing and getting done the things that absolutely must be done before we move in.
FYI, Karren Brito recommends leaving the Polar Red in its dyebath at least over night or 24 hrs to help set the dye molecules. Have you tried, or are you going to try, the WashFast Acid Magenta as well? You might like it better if only because you can use it more quickly. Either has the same washfastness and lightfastness rating. The workshop I took with Linda Knudson, one of the last she taught, used Polar Red on silk.