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:

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!

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:

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.

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

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!

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:

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!