(**Lois Griffith and Trish Johnson – please contact me by email ASAP)
Since there have been some requests for information about dip dyeing, I will endeavor to discuss the subject today … without the benefit of firing up my stove. (It’s just too hot in Anaheim and I think these older photos illustrate the process.
While this recipe can be cut down for smaller amounts, I usually dye a yard at a time. When doing so, I use about 1/2 tsp of powdered dye – whatever recipe is wanted- for one yard of wool. (I say “about” as some recipes end up making a little more or a little less than that specific amount. More dye means everything will be a bit darker and less dye means it will be a bit lighter.) In this photo, since I wanted long sections of dip dye, each piece of wool was 36 inches long. Working in this fashion, I would cut a yard of wool into 8 sections, each 36 inches long – sometimes I only cut it in 4 sections, but the total is still one yard of wool to about 1/2 a teaspoon. Once prepared, the wool is soaked ahead of dyeing. (It would also be fine to cut the wool into 18″ sections – the end result, obviously, will be pieces that aren’t as long as the first example. i.e. Short pieces are needed for small leaves … long pieces are needed for large ones, etc. Pay attention to the spot you want to fill with the dip dye when deciding how to prepare your wool – a 4 inch long leaf will need a piece of wool 16″ long to hook in one continuous line, etc.)
When it comes time to dye, I boil about half a kettle of water, dissolve the dye in a measuring cup and add the dye mixture to the pot. I usually add my citric acid immediately, instead of waiting later in the process – doing so causes the wool to grab the dye quicker. I also get a dip dye gradation, when doing this, that is a bit splotchy. I prefer splotchy gradation to a really smooth transition. It is a matter of taste.
With a boiling dye/acid bath in the pot, I fan fold my wool pieces so they can all be pinched together at the top. I have some good, locking tongs that I use to grab this wool as they are less sensitive to heat than my hand and arm is. Holding the wool over the bath, I begin to lower the wool into the dye mixture, utilizing a slightly swishing/bobbing motion -one needs to swish so the folds open up and accept the dye … one needs to “bob” up and down a little as the wool is slowly lowered in the mixtures so the dye does not make hard lines on the wool.
Sections that stay the longest in the dye bath will be the darkest. i.e. the bottom will be the darkest as it is always soaking up available dye – the top will be the lightest as, by the time it gets in the bath, most of the dye will have already been taken into other sections of the wool.
I can not tell you how long it will take to lower the wool into the pot. It usually takes longer than I think. As I bob up and down, I pay close attention to the way things look – in the photo above, you can see that I have a pretty good gradation. Since there is still some more dye in the water, I have secured the top with my tea kettle so that the the darkest section can soak up a bit more. If I had just dumped the whole piece in the kettle, my top light section would have darkened more than I wanted, hence the tea kettle. Still, if left this way too long, there would be a line. So, I let this piece “park” a couple of mins., then lowered it a bit more and either held it or hung it over the edge of the pot at various stages. (Make sure the fire can’t get the wool if you do that.) Since I had bobbed a gradation from top to bottom, except for where it was held, when only a bit of dye is left in the water, the end of the piece will go in so it can all simmer together for 20 mins. or so to set.
When finished, the piece ought to look something like this. You can dip dye over white, natural or colored wool – all the same, or a mixture. I am pretty sure this green was dip dyed over a yellow, off the bolt wool. Often, when putting my yard together, especially when dyeing greens for leaves, I will use a 1/4 a yard of 4 different colors of wool – white, yellow, light blue, light green, or any other combination. The end result is wool that is all green and related, yet all enough different to show up in the hooked leaf. Since they are related, they usually work well together in the same leaf, or the same rug, etc.
All the scroll material in this example came from the 4 colors of wool mentioned above, dip dyed in about 3 or 4 different baths. I wanted things that worked together, yet wanted to use it in a rather primitive look. Because the “line” on this scroll is longer than the length a 36″ piece of wool could hook, about 9,” I compensated a couple of ways.
1.On some baths, the lighter yellows, I would occasionally do a 36″ dip dye section then, when the whole piece had gone in and there was still some dye in the water, just keep dipping with a second new piece of wool. When finished, two graduated pieces that, together, made a 2 yard continuation, came out of the same pot.
2. On other areas, when hooking, I would start a row with the light end of a 36″ dip dyed piece … hook until it ended in the darkest section, then bring up a new dark end to continue, using either the same wool or a similar dark, and hook it until it went back to light. Using two yard long pieces this way, I could get a light to dark to light section that was 18″ long. (Each yard section would do aprox. 9″ of length.)
This shot shows yellow wool that came out of three different baths – a gold bath (dark on top), a green bath and a red bath, both with the dark on the bottom. Even with 3 different dye baths, because they went over the same wool, these too are all related and copacetic when used together. Because of back lighting, the gradation does not show as well as I would like.
Hopefully this is enough to get you going with dip dyes.
Since the artist wants to “frame” the photo with some trees in the foreground, I also made a copy of two different stands of trees.
To make a paper pattern, I taped a big sheet of paper to the wall, then used an overhead projector to shine the mountain section on to the center section of the paper. Projecting in this sort of fashion allowed me to play with the size of the image until I got it where I wanted it. Once in place, I traced over the lines with a pencil, then did a final drawing with a black marker. With that done, a different tree was projected on each side, in the same way, and then traced. The nice thing about the paper pattern is that it allows both me and the artist the opportunity to live with the design a while before finalizing. If we want to make the mountains bigger, the image can be lengthened, which will also increase the height of the mountains. I also suspect, before we are done, that the trees will move in a bit closer to make up for the lengthening. However, after an evening’s work, we now have something concrete to discuss, think about and, when ready to proceed, use for a pattern transfer.
