I’m excited to announce that I’ll be giving a weekend fabric dyeing workshop through the Inverness County Department of Recreation on April 25 and 26, with a second session in May if necessary.
On Saturday morning we’ll mix three colours of dye—red, yellow, and blue—to make nine other colours, and together we’ll dye light, medium, and dark values of each colour. Here’s a photo that shows medium and light colours:
- We will mix and dye samples of all these colours.
We’ll also dye some more complex colours made by mixing complementary (oppositite) colours, for example adding a little blue to orange to make rust.
Then on Saturday afternoon we’ll work as a group to try out various dyeing techniques. We’ll scrunch fabric into buckets and pour one or more colours of dye on it, as in this photo:
Scrunching the fabric creates these interesting textures.
We’ll also pleat fabric and paint on dye with a foam brush, to get effects like these:
You can made wide or narrow pleats and apply dye different ways.
We’ll clamp fabric using round plastic disks:
We'll use round disks of varying sizes.
And we’ll fold a large piece of fabric into a small shape, dye it, and unfold it to see what happens:
This fabric was folded into a small rectangle.
Everyone will get to take home a small sample of each of the 40-50 colours we dye and a fat quarter of our technique experiments.
Then on Sunday, each person will experiment with whatever colours and techniques interest them most, to create their own one-of-a-kind fabrics. There will be handouts and discussion about buying supplies and setting up a place to dye fabric at home.
I’m really looking forward to sharing something that I have found to be lots of fun. Send me an email if you have any questions, and I hope to see you there!
Tags: fabric dyeing workshop