The Deal

So, here's the deal: Several years ago, I began to dye fabric for sale, choosing to model my work after Ann Johnston's book 'Color by Accident'. That was fun for a season, but then the honeymoon began to wane.

See, the thing about selling fabric to the masses is that, unless there's a sugar daddy involved, making accidents can be kind of expensive. I'd say 20% of my work was truly fabulous, 40% was seriously mediocre and 40% was complete crap that I couldn't even put out for sale. There is overdyeing for the 'C.C.', but believe me...I have plenty of that by now.

I needed to find a way to bring category #1, "Truly Fabulous", into a higher percentage. After much reading, studying of all kinds of fiber artists, etc.... I'd concluded that I should study with Carol Soderlund to learn as much as I can about layering colors and how dyes work together. Buuuuuut...

(Oodles of Complete Crap+No Money Ever) x (Can't-wait-until-June-200?-for-the-class) = Taking a stab at it all on my own.

So, here goes:

Lots of itty-bitty cups containg dyes and 2" squares. See my teenager trying to veer out of the lense? He was my minion for this project. And a fine minion he was, by golly!

I'm waiting....

AND waiting....hate the waiting. Waiting is eeeeeviiilll.

Evil waiting's over and some squares laid out in order:


Then rinsed....


Then stuffed into a ripped up pair of kid tights:


And put through my usual rinse-hotsoak-finalwash:


Finally glued to cardstock:


Now, here's why I (ahem)...I mean...'You' should pay the stupid $ and just take the class with Carol:
-She's already done the math----there was lots of math. And though I love math, my brain was floating in a sludge of numbers by the end.

-Teamwork. This project was a ton of work (according to the 'backache' scale). It took me just as long to cut and glue all the little squares as it did to do the math and get them dyed. In Carol's class, because of teamwork, you accomplish 3 times as much in half the time.

-Mistakes and Safety in Numbers. There are some mistakes on my pages, places where the colors don't grade quite as smoothly as they should. Because I was dyeing such small pieces, dye was measured in tenths of milliliters. One little accidental drop of red could mess up what is suppose to be pale mint. In Carol's class, you're making more fabric per color and there's more room for error.

The good parts:
- I got some of the knowledge I needed right now.
- I tend to be someone that works best with my own systems (kind of a blockhead that way) and have never been a great 'taker of classes'.
- I needed an intense distraction from Christmas. Love the holiday, hate the expectations and the work.

So there you have it. I'll probably do this again now that I've done it once. And as seen in the previous post, I've already begun to apply the knowledge.