janestarz | Adventures to dye for *

This weekend was mostly spent reading Namaah's Kiss and sewing with

palanthe. Along with some choice athletics, sweating, and pancakes.

As far as my dye adventures go, I've never actually tried to complement the fabrics "starting" colour. I've taken whites and natural whites and dyed them to a black-with-silver or deep-bloody-red or OMG-purple-teh-pretty!
I've never taken a blue and tried to add yellow to make green.

The dye challenge was rather interesting and I suppose I should have prepared better. We decided to take 50g out of a 200g package of rosewood red in order to add a splash of red to the vibrant yellow fabric. Instead, we obtained something that can be described best as Hup-Holland-Hup orange.
Oh dear.

Luckily, NoKey had once strayed into the unknown lands of fabric de-colourant and we had most of the package left. After trying a test swatch with promising results I made a hot tub of water and we dunked the fabric in until the colour was right. Then we tossed out the mixture and soaked the fabric in cold water before tossing it into the washing machine to rinse out the last of the de-colourants.

It was quite the adventure but it turned out pretty damn well, I must say. The obtained colour was just the right shade and matched the other fabric (a polyester) well.

While the fabric was colouring and washing we made a mock-up and then continued on with pants on Sunday. We had pancakes, Dr. Horrible and the Gamers II and lasagna. Good progress was made!

I also dyed a swatch of the soft white wool that once was used for my mantua, to see if it would. It's a bit pinkish, which can be attributed to the small amount of red dye, or the lack of vinegar. It bodes well for my plans for a red kirtle / gothic fitted dress. I need red linen for a lining and some more research on dyeing wool.

I've also made a shirt for NoKey, for which I'm handsewing the hems in the train. The french seams were probably quite unnecessary, but "...to see if I could" is as good a reason as any.

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*) Alright, stop it with the puns already!