Tien Chiu

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You are here: Home / All blog posts / A dyeing extravaganza
Previous post: Science, hypothesis testing, and painted warp samples
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March 20, 2019 by Tien Chiu

A dyeing extravaganza

I started recovering from my cold right around the time the weather cleared up, so one of the first things I did was wind and paint the warp for my painted-warp samples. Here it is, festooning our fig tree:

painted warp hung to dry in the fig tree
painted warp hung to dry in the fig tree

There are actually two warps, wound and painted together, which will be woven using the exact same threading and treadling. Only the tie-up will be different. But! One fabric will blend warp and weft colors into a single, mixed color. The other will separate warp and weft colors as much as possible. As a result, the two fabrics will look quite different. They should be quite instructive for my students.

Since I had a bunch of leftover dye after painting the warp, of course I had to add a few T-shirts to my wardrobe. So I grabbed a few shirts and used them to soak up extra dye.

(I am infernally lazy about clothing. Since I am 5’0″ with extremely broad shoulders, muscular arms, and weigh considerably more than I should, it’s nearly impossible to find clothes that fit. My solution is to find one type of clothing that fits, buy a dozen of it in white, and dye twelve different variants so they all look creatively unique. Back when I was working in high-tech, it was short-sleeve button-down shirts; nowadays I mostly just roll with T-shirts.)

Of course, as soon as I laid the shirts on the bed for photography, the inevitable happened. Because in this household, cats are always standing by to help!

Fritz, helping out with photos!

Fortunately, a bit of a belly rub, some head scritching, and a bit of out and out cat-treat bribery convinced Mr. Fritz to take himself elsewhere. (Of course, this could explain why cats are so eager to help, but what’s a human to do? Moving the cat would be unthinkable!)

So here are the shirts I dyed. First up is my favorite. Usually I only use two colors with scrunch dyed shirts, but this time I used three colors – a warm fuschia, gold, and indigo blue. I LOVE the results – the photo really doesn’t do it justice:

multi-color low water immersion dyed shirt

This shirt, dyed in a mix of indigo, turquoise, and steel gray, came out gorgeous, but a bit too subdued for my tastes (what can I say, I’m a magpie!) Fortunately, my friend Sand fell instantly in love with it, so I gave it to them, and we were both delighted.

A T-shirt tie-dyed in indigo blue and steel gray

I have mixed feelings about the Wild Boar Farms T-shirt below:

A Wild Boar Farms T-shirt tie-dyed in orange and green

The colors are a bit more muted than I had intended – partly because the shirt is 50/50 cotton-polyester, which I hadn’t realized before dyeing. (Polyester doesn’t take fiber-reactive dyes, so the color is less intense than on a pure cotton shirt.) On the other hand…the color is PERFECT for a tomato farm T-shirt, which is exactly as I intended! And it captures perfectly the colors of my favorite tomato variety, Berkeley Tie-Dye, bred by…Wild Boar Farms!

A Berkeley Tie-Dye tomato I grew last year - red, green, and yellow stripes
A Berkeley Tie-Dye tomato I grew last year

Meanwhile, the samples Laura Fry wove up for me arrived. I have not yet photographed them, though, because when I tried to take photos, this happened:

My cat Tigress sitting on handwoven samples
Tigress, helping with photos

Since I was out of cat treats (just kidding – the world would end if I actually ran out of cat treats!), I had to abandon the samples to Ms. Tigress and give up on photography for the day. (What? Move the cat? Unthinkable!)

But the samples are quite interesting – looking forward to getting the photos and analyzing the color interactions. Plus, they’re pretty!

I’m also planning another dye day…including not one, but TWO new bathrobes. A big event for me…I only do a new bathrobe every few years, and it’s a big deal because I like huge, floor-length, luxurious bathrobes. They’re expensive, tricky to handle, and soak up a LOT of dye – so it’s rather like trying to dye a giant ball gown. So stay tuned…fun times ahead!

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Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, dyeing, weaving Tagged With: tie-dye

Previous post: Science, hypothesis testing, and painted warp samples
Next post: There but for the grace…

Comments

  1. Brucie Connell says

    March 21, 2019 at 6:54 am

    You sound so much more chipper than in your last blog. I am glad you are feeling better and I am glad you are back to regular posts. I missed hearing about the tomato factory and all.

  2. Judith Rhoades says

    March 21, 2019 at 1:31 pm

    Looking forward to the next round of pictures (with the cats!)

  3. Leslie Rodier says

    March 29, 2019 at 7:09 pm

    Thank you for the beautiful share. We all need to be reminded of this.

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