I snuck out of the house early this morning to do a second round of dyeing. Here are the “Extreme Makeover” shots, with commentary:
I basically like the way this came out. The orange-red was too assertive for my tastes, and the black tones it down considerably. It looks dark, brooding, and mysterious. All except for the two light spots left on the front! I am thinking I may re-soak the shirt in soda ash, and carefully paint parts of those sections in medium to dark gray. Another option might be to add highlights on the dark side by screen printing, but I rather like the visual texture the way it is. Adding light colors will focus the eye on the contrast between the screen printing and the dark fabric, and you won’t see the lovely dye-patterning.
The next two were less successful, I think because I didn’t add enough dye:
This partially accomplished what I wanted, by toning down the color contrasts. However, it hasn’t done anything about balancing the splotches of yellow on the front and the shoulders, and the result is now rather low contrast and meh. There is also fire-spotting (bits of red and blue dye) on the shoulder.
I plan to re-dye, scrunching it up and adding some golden yellow, to balance out the yellow patches. After that? I will probably screen print something on it – something with lots of lines (tufts of grass?), in gold perhaps, to add some more visual texture. Right now it feels rather bland.
This just didn’t get enough cerulean blue. Into the bath for another overdye. This time I think I will scrunch it up before applying a concentrated solution of cerulean blue, to add some more texture.
And, the scrub of the bunch comes last:
Clearly, this doesn’t work as it stands. The golden yellow is too assertive (something I should have thought of) and the mix of green, red, mustard, and brown just isn’t attractive. I’m thinking of overdyeing in a medium chocolate brown (to tone things down), and if that fails, go to the ultimate dyers’ solution: dye it solid black and screen print on it. You can’t win ’em all.
Tonight I am working on mastering the bound buttonhole, but tomorrow morning I’ll sneak out for another round of dyeing. Stay tuned!
