Cathcing Up

Earlier this summer, I started another run of dye samples.

Anybody remember this?

Yeah. Just a little bitta' work there. That was how, waaaaay back in December 2005, I decided to tackle this project. You can read all about it here.

Sinced then, I've learned a great deal about how to do this. For those that follow the dyerslist, I've used Doug Wilson's immersion dye technique. For those not on dyerslist, Doug Wilson is this chemistry dye genius that seems to have a day job testing dyes of all ilk.

The other change I made was to achieve color through overdyeing. The benefits:
-not having to measure out microscopic amounts of dye and auxillary
-being able to dye with only 6 bins, instead of a bazillion tiny plastic cups
-easier control of batching temperature
-the ability to break down the project into manageable sessions
-higher dye saturation and very little mottling
-the grades are more consistance

Now for the pictures. We start with enough yardage to dye all the yellow for the whole project:

It's then cut and shuffled, ready for the red dye bath:

Cut and shuffle # 2, ready for blue:

Then I had a brain fart and forgot to photgraph the blue dyebath. So we jump to where I am right now:

Slowyly, over the summer, I've been gluing squares in. The loose squares are sorted into envelopes and waiting for some time to free up.

Here's two of my favorite cards:

Love that color! All the color.

Keep in mind, I'm not the genius that came up with all of this. Carol Soderlund has designed a week long intensive class covering this whole process. Seeing her cards on line is what inspired me to think about this process. I'm probably missing some great crucial elephant, but am happy so far with these experiments. And since my brain processes so slowly, it's worked well for me to explore these techniques in my own time.

Talk to you soon!