Sunday, June 10, 2007

Dying is unpredictable!

I did some dying today. I have a project in mind that needs some green mohair locks..... I mixed 2 parts green dye called "evergreen" and 1 part " sunflower" yellow. I was going for a yellow green, mostly green.

My steamer holds a small amount, so I dyed the mohair in two batches.
Looks like spinach, doesn't it?
. The first dye-bath was very concentrated and did not exhaust.
For those of you non- fiber people, the term "exhaust" means all the dye attaches to the fiber and leaves the dye-bath looking like plain water.

Exhaust:
wear out completely; "This kind of work exhausts me"; "I'm beat"; "He was all washed up after the exam"

consume: use up (resources or materials); "this car consumes a lot of gas"; "We exhausted our savings"; "They run through 20 bottles of wine a week"

run down: deplete; "exhaust one's savings"; "We quickly played out our strength"

use up the whole supply of; "We have exhausted the food supplies"


I got a vibrant green,,, but not the yellow green I had hope for. I put the second batch in the leftover dye bath, and it exhausted almost immediately, before steaming. I added a little more concentrated dye, and let it steam.
This looks like green peas to me!
Now, this fiber is more like what I wanted!



.
.My only guess is that the green dye "took up" quickly and the yellow took longer, so there was more yellow left in the initial dye bath.....Who knows? Dying is unpredictable.
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Here they are side by side, same dye mix for each. Hard to believe....just like me and my sisters, we all came from the same stuff, but we look very different!

1 comment:

Lotzastitches said...

That's amazing!

Note to self: If you are going for a particular look (or color) be sure to have extra wool/fiber handy because you can never be too sure what's coming out of the dye pot.