Magic Dyeing Made Easy

I have had a certain book sitting on my bookshelf for a while, and I just cannot explain why I have not really used it before.  Because, now that I have, or a tiny part of it at least courtesy Jane at the C&G course, I realise it is a treasure.  If you dye your own fabric, I just don't see how you can do with out this little gem of a book.

It's not one of those coffee table books.  There are  no arty photos.  The best way to describe it is to say it's like one of those old fashioned recipe books - full of practical info in black and white (with a few photos thrown in).

I cannot explain why I haven't really used it, particularly as I do dye my own fabric.  But I guess I have tended to just go for a bit of random experimentation.

So last night we applied a bit of Helen's science.  Basically, we turned to the colour recipes on page 88 and set up a production line!  We were dying with plastic bags - in essence what this involves is putting damp ready to dye fabric into freezer bags together with the dye mixes, salt solution, soda crystal solution and plain water (to the recipes in the book), and then tying the bags and leaving the dye to work it's magic on the fabric for 24 hours.

I took home numbers 10, 15 and 16.

Here they are cluttering up the kitchen work surface.

And here are those fabrics rinsed and hanging to dry. (not a brilliant photo if I am honest, but you can just about make out the different tones in the top two fabrics which are next to each other in the recipe list).

Next week we will be bringing all the fabric in and it will be interesting to compare and contrast!