Katazome + cross-dyeing – oh, the possibilities!

As I prepare to wrap up the Celtic Braid Coat, I’m thinking about my next project.  I think I’m going to do katazome on warps and mix it up with cross-dyeing.

Here, at least in theory, is how it works:

Starting with a white warp in a cellulose fiber (cotton, rayon, linen, etc.):

First, you apply the resist to the warp:

Next the warp is dyed with a red-to-yellow color gradient, and the resist washed out:

Where the resist was, you have white; the rest of it is in the dyed color gradient.

Now, the fabric is woven using a lime green weft:

…and a circular patch of resist is applied:

Now the cloth is dyed with acid dyes in a blue to green gradient.  This will dye the protein weft but not the cotton warp; the result, after washout, should look like this:

The boundary lines will not be so neat in real life, of course, as the edges will “feather” during weaving.  But I think it’s an interesting technique with a lot of potential.

Since I have a 10/2 cotton warp already on the loom, this presents some excellent possibilities, as well as a way to use up a 15-yard cotton warp (what was I thinking?).  At Bonnie Inouye’s recommendation, I’m going to weave up some “fabric” with a fine, sacrificial weft this week (one pick every inch or so) and resist/dye the resulting fabric – possibly this weekend, possibly later.  I’m debating whether to keep the warp white before dyeing or whether to dye it with a “base coat”, probably yellow.  Also debating what stencil pattern to carve – I’m thinking flames but am coming up with some intriguing possibilities (phoenix feathers!) in my design class.

This will all take some time, though, so it probably won’t happen until next week, assuming I can finish up the Celtic Braid Coat this week.  (Possibly a tall order!  We shall see.)