After the Washout…. Dye Update

Now that all the fabric I dyed last week has been thoroughly rinsed and then ironed, I know what I have to play with and what will need some more work.
As you can see in the photo above, that all was not lost… far from it!! I ended up with some pretty wishy-washy colors, but there were some very pleasant surprises.  After some comments made and information from others, I am not tossing my dye concentrates yet… I will give them another try, but this time give the fabrics more hours in the soda ash soak. I only left these an hour or so because I was in a hurry.   Here is what hurrying got me:

The above photo is the only one taken of what any of my fabrics looked like fresh out of the dyebath after only an initial rinse. It was really striking with the rich, deep colors, but as I began to rinse, more and more of that beautiful color left….

The piece still has some great patterning, but is nothing like it first looked. The golden yellow stayed the best because it was the only freshly  mixed dye I had used.

One of the clean-up fabric pieces… not much color left….

I think this is my favorite piece…. I love the soft colors and the way the fuchsia faded to a pale rose into the green. Very sky or water-like…

This one kept quite a bit of color. I love the icy patterns that I got.

This one is even icier with less rose tones and touches of greenish blue here and there. This is a 2 yard piece that I cut in half lengthwise… I thought it was only one yard, but now I have a long piece.

This was supposed to be a deep, dark green… it still is green, just more of a seafoam shaded piece. I wanted some pieces for mountains, but got seashore instead.

This one held a bit more yellow…. still lots of patterning.

This is another green… more “minty”, and this started as a white on white print… I have two sides to choose from 🙂

This one really surprised me… I was amazed that the black that I watered down before putting it on, stayed much better than I expected. This was expected to have much darker fuchsia. I had tried to get these colors and patterning on purpose in the past… I got it by accident… A happy accident…

One of the more “wish-washy” pieces. This will be used for sunprinting, or may be cut up and used for skies….

This one is really pale… Another white on white, so I have two sides to choose from. Not sure if I will do more, or leave it to use where I need just a touch of color.

Any better description?? This one reminds me of something that the mustard bottle blew up on… Probably my least favorite, so this is in line to be overdyed or painted. This is the piece of fabric I placed in the bottom of the bucket that Shibori 1 sat in, so I could catch all the drips…. very sad pale blue and mustard….

A random few smaller pieces. Most that I did were one yard pieces, but these are fat quarters and a half yard. The fat quarters were clean-up “rags” and I am still amazed at how much the black stayed around…. that golden yellow did great… the difference fresh dye makes.  This dye session was a real learning experience, but gave me a lot of great usable pieces. I will have to play with soda ash soaking things much longer to see if I can get more color from the old dyes… I hate to toss anything out if there is any good in it….

I gotta add a couple flowers… This Lily is taller than I am, with gobs of flowers. It smells wonderful!

It looked like a spotlight was on this Hosta, with the sun beaming through the leaves of the trees in the back yard. It has bright lime green leaves which look even more yellow in the sun.
I need to get back to the studio… I have a group of postcards in the works…. Photos when I get more done…