So I have decided to take a little break from my black and white obsession to play with color in the form of dyeing some tencel warps for some twill scarves. Although I do a lot of dyeing of protein fibers with acid dyes and have that process down pat, I am leery of dyeing cellulose and rayon fibers. It seems less predicable and I really don’t like the long rinsing process I have encountered before. But time to get out my MX fiber reactive dyes from Pro Chemical and give them another chance. I wound on the first set of scarves at 7 yds, enough for 2 really long scarves and a cowl. The edges were threaded with a half inch of bright blue and a few threads of black. I knew I was dyed this set with blues and teals so those edge color would just overdye into something cool. The second 7 yd. warp was dyed in reds and browns, at least that was my plan. Not sure why so much color washed out so the reds and browns turned out more coral and tans, fortunately I liked the colors, just not what I expected. I did everything the same as the first blue warp, even making sure a heater was running because we were having a cold spell at the time and the directions said the dyed warps needed to be above 70 degrees. After a lot of messing around getting the border threads threaded correctly the scarves wove up pretty fast and I tied the coral warp onto the blue scarves to save some time. These were on the looms and off in a week just in time for the Winding Roads Studio Tour. I am just intrigued enough by this semi successful dye process to try a couple of more warps and hopefully figure out the problem getting a good red.
7 yd warp being measured on the warping reel
Thor (my wonderful xmas present from hubby) keeps me company and occasionally startles me while I dye. Also a good time to catch up on podcasts.
hand dyed tencel warp going on the loom
hand dyed tencel scarf
dyed tencel scarf with teal weft
winding fringes
supposed to be red and brown dyed warp. One scarf with red silk weft, the other with green tencel weft.
red silk weft tencel scarf
yummy scarf pile
Hi Angela, your scarves are lovely. Have you been able to make any discoveries about the washed colors, as well as finding a good red? I’m new to cellulose dyeing too, with much experience with wool dyeing.
Thanks Diane for your comments. I did dye another tencel warp hoping to get a deeper red. I overdyed a tan base color and that helped but still not the deep red I am looking for. So for further experiments I think I just need to order a different red to try. The rinsing and rinsing was not as bad with this warp but still I believe this is just the nature of dyeing with fiber reactive dyes. But then again I still have lots to learn with these dyes.