1.6 Fabric Dyeing (2)

I decided to try dyeing some muslin, again wrapped around sticks, to try to increase the colour penetration.  These were all dyed in my colour scheme of blues and turquoise.  My thoughts at this stage for the final piece, remain some form of translucent layed image depicting my childhood memoirs, with a wave background.    The penetration of the dye was much better this time particularly in the first image.

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After trying the dispersal dyes, I thought I would prepare some backgrounds for the next chapter, using transfer dyes.  I painted the transfer dyes onto layout paper (A4), working quite quickly and freely to create loose seascape images from memory.  I quite like the pooling of the colour as the paper winkled under the wet dye as it has an almost watercolour effect. 

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I then transferred the images onto polyester cotton.  Due to the cotton content of the fabric the images transferred lighter than the original, however, I quite liked the more subtle colours.   

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I then tried some experiments dyeing different synthetic fabric strips.  I prepared another range of transfer papers (A5).  

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I then stitched together three fabric strips and transferred the dye. 

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In the image above, the top strip is an Eton II Taffeta lining (100%  polyester); the middle strip an acetate white satin; and the middle strip a plain synthetic organza. 

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In the image above, the top strip is a polyester (65%) cotton (35%) lawn; the middle strip a nylon voile; and the bottom strip a polyester Dupion.  The colours are more vibrant than both photographs above indicate and the nylon voile has taken on more colour than is apparent.  There is the 'happy accident' of leaving the iron too long in one place on the last strip but it adds another dimension to the image (reminds me of the Francis Bacon quote 'all painting is an accident').   



To finish the transfer dyeing I printed one image multiple times across a strip of 100% polyester to give the effect of the sea.  Whilst this worked quite well with the transferred image fading the more times it was used, sometimes the multiple transfers also removed some of the transferred dye from a previous pressing.  

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I really enjoyed using the transfer dye as the end result is much more controllable.  I will continue to experiment with dyeing, perhaps using the immersion dyes first to provide a general colour and then using the transfer dyes (although there would have to be a careful choice of fabric/dye products for the desired outcome to work).