Michael Rhode Dye workshop

Over the weekend I took a workshop in dyeing given by fellow guild member & weaver extraordinaire Michael Rhode. He uses liquid dyes and has a very scientific method for getting the exact colors he wants. The dyes we used were Remazol Liquid Reactive dyes you can get them from Dharma Trading www.dharmatrading.com & www.prochemical.com I love this no more danger of breathing dye powder. Although I've got so much dye powder it may take my entire life to use it all up.

During the class I was so busy that I didn't snap one picture! But we made a great dye reference book and that I can show you!

Michael uses 6 colors for all of the colors you will see here. A cool & warmer version of Red Yellow & Blue. I've labeled the color names below each photo.

First we made these samples of colors from full strength to more dilute.

Fuchisa, Bright Yellow, Bright blue.

Scarlet, Golden Yellow, Navy.

Then mixing Fuchsia & B. Yellow, B. Yellow & B. Blue, Fuchsia & B. Blue.

Scarlet/Golden Yellow, Golden Yellow/Navy, Scarlet/Navy.

Fuchsia/Green, B. Yellow/ Violet, B blue/ Orange

Scarlet/Green, G Yellow/ Violet, Navy/Orange

It's pretty involved with formulas etc, but simple once you understand. If you ever get the chance to take the workshop from Michael I highly recommend it. I'm really excited to have this notebook because I can just pick the colors I want and then read the formula. I was also thinking it's great for blending fibers on the drum carder. Some other great references for color are the books Color in Spinning & Color Works by Deb Menz.

Craft day at my house

For years I've wanted to organize a dye day at my home but I wanted to do natural dyes and I didn't feel confident with them. Since doing that workshop last month on working with natural dyes I decided to go ahead and try! I probably made a few mistakes, I didn't have lye and used washing soda and the indigo dye went bubbling over the top of the jar! And now there is blue stuff all over my yard, but we did dye a lot of stuff! Gigi, Riley & I put the first wool into the Indigo dye pot The surface of the liquid is blue but you can see below it is yellow, this means the dye pot is ready because the indigo reacts with oxygen and then turns from yellow to green to turquoise to blue...simply amazing! I would have liked to make a video of the process but I'm afraid everyone was to entranced by it to actually pick up the camera and capture it! Yes the indigo smells really bad! Like poo actually! haha! Ah the joys of life! The precious jar of indigo! Some of our dye results, Julie dipped her kelly green fringe half way into the dye to make it more interesting. It turned out beautiful! Riley knows! Safety first! That's Gerri looking on. Me, miss fluffy hair, hmmm that didn't turn out very well! It didn't even change from that greenish yellow, oh well! more stuff we dyed And in my house too!! I think I'm going to weave an indigo blue blanket. Lots of stuff to spin. Riley dyed an old t shirt for her mom!