Tag: tie dye

Tie dye scarf

This scarf has a history.

In about 1986, I was in a production of The Boyfriend with the now defunct Moseley Operatic Society. I was issued with a costume for the fancy dress ball scene: a seriously bright yellow peasant top, with a matching yellow and black striped skirt, to represent a Mexican bandit. No headgear. In the 1920s? I don’t think so.

So one lunchtime, I rushed round Birmingham city centre and managed to find a lovely soft cotton scarf in exactly the right yellow. It was really cheap in the sale (nobody else needed such a loud colour), and tied round my head with the long ends trailing it was just what I needed.

I kept it, because the cotton was so nice, but it just wasn’t my colour. So I never got round to wearing it.

Then in 2001 I was in the chorus for La Traviata with West Riding Opera. Could we provide our own gypsy costume? I had one of those multi tiered skirts which I never wore, because white skirts just attract muck when I wear them. So the skirt and scarf went into some bright red Dylon to make the costume. I expected a red skirt and a toning orange scarf, but they both came out the same bright red.

So now I have dunked it in the indigo vat. I might just wear it now!

Bulldog clip resist

The basic idea of a resist is simple. Use something to stop the dye getting to the fabric, and it will make a pattern. That something can be string tied round the fabric, or a paste painted on, or just scrunching it up so the dye can’t get through.

The exact effect can be difficult to predict. Sometimes you can get a lovely marbled effect just by scrunching up wet fabric before putting it in the dye bath. Once I didn’t scrunch enough, and it came out a nice even colour all over. Because of that, I try to make sure I scrunch firmly, and often I get over enthusiatic and end up with more of the original colour than I expected.

Four methods of creating resist
The results

Anything that holds the fabric together works, like a bulldog clip. As you can see from the pictures above, I tried four methods of creating resist recently for my indigo experiments, with the result of the bulldog clip in the bottom right corner of the results picture. I wasn’t surprised that the dye didn’t get to the fabric in the middle of the folded piece, but I thought the outer layer would have a line across the corner where the clip touched, rather than leaving the area under the clip the original colour.

I thought I would try using bulldog clips on a scarf, placing them reasonably far apart, so that the dye could get through to the inner layers, as I wanted a blue scarf with a white pattern. I tried one scarf as it came out of the packet, with just one extra fold, and another with a concertina fold, making it a quarter of the original width.

I folded down the handles of the clips, because my indigo vat is a large kilner jar, so it has a relatively narrow neck. Originally, this jar was supposed to be for mixing only, and I was going to transfer it to a lidded bucket for its permanent home. I didn’t do the transfer at first, so that I could see what was going on. Now I have decided to carry on using the jar. The reason for using a larger dye bath is so that the fabric can move around easily, giving a more even result.  That is good if you want a nice plain blue. I’m after interesting patterns, so a bit of variation is a good thing.

When I undid the scarves, I was surprised to find that the handles are big enough to create a resist, giving an interesting pattern.

Two more experiments need to follow on from this:

  1.  Is the undyed area under the clip only there because of the short time the fabric is in the indigo vat? About 10 minutes does the trick for indigo, but other dyes need longer, for example simmering for half an hour, or 3 hours in a slow cooker. In that time, and with the extra movement that occurs due to the heat, the dye might find its way under the clip.
  2. If the clip is moved and a second dye is applied, logically there could be a range of colours made by a mix of the two colours and the original. It might even be possible to get a rainbow.

But not just yet…

Stitch resist

I’ve never been much into craft classes. Books and the internet are my normal sources of training, because they are available when I want to know something. Which is usually so that I can start something NOW.

But every now and then, something catches my eye. I had seen that the University of Leeds had an exhibition called Resists: exploring resist-dyed textiles across cultures, which runs until 13th December 2018, and I was toying with the idea of going. But I was busy with work, and it is a long way to go. Then I saw they were running a stitch resist workshop afternoon, so combining the two seemed like a good bet.

Bintan Titisari gave us some background to this traditional Indonesian techniques, showing us the range of effects that are created on various different islands, and some of the traditional motifs. We were then let loose with cotton bags and a pencil to create our own designs. Mine combines two traditional motifs, with the general plan of representing a storm, with rain coming from the cloud motifs, a blue background, and rainbow colours appearing at random.

Once our designs were complete, we sewed along the lines with running stitch, gathered up the stitching, and tied the thread in very firm knots. This technique is a form of tie dying, where the dye can’t get at all the fabric because of the bulk of the fabric round the gathers. I intended to take a picture at this stage, but we were running out of time, so I forgot. Bother.

The next stage was to move into a lab to apply the colour. It felt very strange to be decked out in lab coats, goggles, and gloves to mix and apply Dylon, which is safe to use in your kitchen at home. We had dye in primary colours, and after soaking our bags in a background colour for 15 minutes, we moved on to carefully squirting other colours in selected places using plastic ketchup bottles, which seems rather incongruous in a lab. We could then choose whether we went for the technical option of leaving our bags to be “cooked” at 40°C for 24 hours in the University’s special colour setting oven, or taking it home and leaving it wrapped in cling film for 24 hours. I went for the latter option, to avoid going back to collect the bag. The picture shows my dyed bag being properly wrapped by two experienced textile specialists.

Once the parcel had matured for 24 hours (OK a bit longer, while I got round to it), I rinsed the bag in cold water and left it to dry, before undoing the knots and releasing the stitches. At this stage, the cotton is crinkled where the stitches used to be. It is possible to stitch both sides of the bag separately, but as you can see, to save time, I sewed through both layers at once. The two sides are slightly different, due to different amounts of extra colour being applied.

To remove some of the creases, I soaked it in water again, dried and ironed it.

I’m pleased with the result, but it is interesting to see that you can see the places where I was rushing because I was running out of time.

I always think it is interesting to reflect on what I’ve actually learned on any training course. Sometimes it isn’t what it I expected it to be. The most useful things from this course were:

  • I was reminded of a method of making a knot at the end of your thread. Hold the end of the thread on your needle with your thumb, wrap the thread round the needle 4 or 5 times, and pull the needle through the loops. How could I have forgotten that?
  • I was introduced to cotton darners. This type of needle was easy to thread, and good for any technique where you are making long lines of stitches, or large straight stitches. They are easily available in good old Samuel Taylors in Leeds, but I didn’t have time to go back there on the way to the train. I’ve had blank looks in several shops, but have now found a pack.
  • When I’ve tried this technique on my own, I have used a strong polyester thread. The thread we used was slightly rough, which helps to hold the fabric in place. This photo is not the best, but it serves as a quick reminder of the “new” needles and thread.