Tuesday 26 August 2014

Sisters three thread dye session...

Well after four marvellous days at the Festival of Quilts back home with my sisters for company and caught up with some thread dyeing.

My sister Sue, cannot get a decent range of threads when she lives in Andalucia so we decided to produce a range of plain and varigated threads in a range of weights for her to take back with her.

We stranded a selection of white cottons, linen and some silk threads, soaked them in soda ash, drained the soda ash off then added concentrated procion dyes to the thread trays.




We left them to 'cure' overnight then rinsed until clear - it always surprises me that using this method seems to take up all the pigment - very little dye rinses out.  First dried on old towelling then pegged outside to dry. Pleasing result, bright clear colours - but did discover some 'cotton ' perle sold at the FOQ did not take the dye - a little burn test later showed it was some polyester mix thread.