Studio Tour Day 3: Got Color?

It's the third day of my studio tour and we discover what every artist loves the most, color! Color for this artist begins with hand-dyed fabrics and threads created deep in my basement dye studio. Here's a typical dye day in the dye shop.

First saunter into the room (also known as the family laundry room) and check out the dyeing situation. On the canvas covered table top there's a plastic sheet, damp drop cloth, and the tools for mixing the dyes. You'll need a blender, scale to weigh the dye, containers for the powder, dye bottles, and funnel.

Safety first! Put on your gloves, apron, and dust mask. Pick out the basic colors for the day (yellow, fuchsia, turquoise, and blue) and weigh the dye powder on the handy dandy scale. Carefully add the dye powder to the hot water in the blender. (My recipe is 1000 mls of water to 30 grams of dye powder.)

This is very important, put the cover on the blender. Mix the dye in the blender and pour it into your dye bottles.

Now pour the dye on the fabric (pre-soaked in soda ash water) and go have lunch.  (For a really good book on dyeing, I recommend Frieda Anderson's book, Fabric to Dye For.) Tomorrow we'll leave the dye/laundry/office and enter another part of my basement studio. Thanks for stopping by!