GRAY SCALE AND COLOR

Posted by Peg in South Carolina 

I have always been interested in, have always loved, color.  But grayscale?  I hate it.  Why?  Because I simply cannot judge the grayscale values of color, except in really extreme cases.  But digital photography has made this a snap.  Thanks to this technology I could take the colored photo and transform it into a grayscale version.

Grayscale version of the photo:

Having transformed the photo, thanks to Paint Shop Pro, I could see that the lime green was definitely lighter on the grayscale than the others.  But, until I converted the image to grayscale, I would have guessed that it was a great deal lighter than either of the two other skeins.  Not so.  It is a great deal lighter than the skein on the right, but not so much lighter than the middle skein.

MUNSELL+DYE STUDY GROUP

I have Karren Brito’s new Weavolution group to thank for this helpful trick.  Karren, an accomplished dyer, especially in using Lanasest/Sabraset dyes on silk, has started a new group there called the Munsell+Dye Study Group.  If you go to the group’s Forum here, you will see the post and photo that inspired me.

By the way, Karren is also a weaver, a craft she has lately returned to.  She has a web page/blog which she calls Entwinements. She also has a Facebook page, for anyone interested in social networking.

I am not, by the way, a member of Karren’s study group.  By the time I learned about it, the group was closed.  However, at Karren’s suggestion, I am now working on collecting names for a second group.  If you are interested, go the Munsell+Dye Study Group on Weavolution and either post your interest on that group’s forum (you will see the appropriate topic there) or send me a PM.

So now I have a new tool to help me judge colors, the placement of colors, and the amount of colors in weaving piece I am designing.

“Gray Scale and Color”  was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on July 20, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

WHY IS THE BLACK TABLE GREEN?

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

GREEN IS GOOD

Yes, the table in reality is actually black.  Why is it green in the photo?  Because I fiddled with Paint Shop Pro to get the colors right.  This meant ramping up the green and also, a bit, the yellow;  and lessening the red.  Doing this affects the whole photo, so the table got to be green as well. 

How to avoid this?  Yes, it is possible.  Select the skeins out from the background, create a new layer, and work only with that on the color.  I have not mastered the skill of selection and do not feel the need to.  This photo is not for professional publication, after all!

So, what was the problem that led me to doing this?  The green yarn on the left wasn’t quite bright enough.  The yarn in the middle did not have enough of a green cast and the yarn on the right was way to red.

The results are not perfect, though there is definite improvement.  The color of the green yarn is accurate.  The red is still a tiny bit too red.  The brown is quite off the mark. It definitely needs to be more of an avocado, though a dulled avocado.

TOO MUCH REDDISH YARN

But there is another problem, and this one is a bit more serious.  The yarn on the right was to be my main binder yarn so I dyed three skeins of it.  But it turned out way too red for that purpose.  The middle skein turned out exactly right for that purpose.  Clearly, when I moved from dyeing small sample skeins to dyeing 100 gram skeins, something went amiss in my calculations.

MORE DYEING TO DO? 

Based on what I saw, I changed the dye calculations and came up with the middle skein. I am not going to dye any more of this color until I have started the weaving and can get a better estimate of how much more yarn I will need.

I would, however, like to dye a smaller amount of a green that is between the brightest green and the avocado green and also a smaller amount of quite a bright version of the red.

BACK TO SLEYING THAT REED…..

Not to mention winding skeins onto cones………..

“Why is the Black Table Green?”  was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on July 14, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

NOW IT’S TWO, NOT ONE, EXTRA WARP ENDS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

One loose end on the right half;  now one loose one on the left. The one on the right side (left in the photo) was the result of inadvertently threading two ends in one heddle.  The other one was a thread that was appropriately in the lease sticks but simply had been apparently dropped as I was threading. 

Note how I put that the main part of that last clause in the passive voice:  I absolutely disclaim any responsibility for that error!

I have wrapped each end around a knitting fair isle bobbin.  Who knows, maybe as I weave a will break a nearby warp end and there will be one to neatly replace it!

SLEYING SAME ENDS THREE TIMES

The few remaining warp ends that need to be sleyed are through the lease sticks on the right side of the photo.  I didn’t finish today.  Aside from having spent the last two days dying, I ended up sleying one group of ends THREE times.   Sigh.  I have to be very careful when I near the end of something.  Try as I may, some kind of hopeful energy surges through me and I start making mistakes.  I was so sure I would finish sleying during this session…….

WHY  DOES MY CAMERA SEEK OUT RED?

This warp, by the way, is not red.  Not red at all.  It is brown and a browned yellow-green.  Red, however, was one of the colors in the dye pot.  Every time I take a picture, I am astonished to see how desperate my camera is to bring that red into the foreground.  I have given up fussing with Paint Shop Pro to correct the issue.  I am going to allow my camera to have its own way.  Sometimes one simply must.

Related Post:  Sleying the Reed Half Done

“Now It’s Two, Not One, Extra Warp Ends” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on July 7, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

DYE STOCK SOLUTIONS MADE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I made the three dye stock solutions I was low on but that I needed for creating the colors for the 120/2 silk yarn I am getting ready to dye.  Sabraset/Lanaset Violet and Sun Yellow and Washfast Acid Magenta.  The first and third I generally do not use much of in my dyeing, but, over time, the solutions needed to be replenished.  Sun Yellow, because of its weak coloring strength, I go through tons of.  Well, liters of…..  So now I have the stock solutions I need make the colors I want.

Making dye stock solutions is not my favorite task.  It’s not really the danger that the powder poses, except indirectly.  I need to do this out of the house/in the garage.  Because the garage gets much too hot and humid in the summer, I am not willing to risk storing dye powders there. Nor am I willing to even think about storing anything plastic there.  Consequently I need to bring everything out there from inside.  And then, of course, bring everything back in after I have cleaned up. 

Not my favorite thing to do. And so I drag out the process, which goes something like this:

1. Check formulas to see how much I will need of each dye stock solution.  Did this a couple of weeks ago.

2. Check stock solutions to see which ones, if any, need to be replenished.  Figure out how much I need to make. Did this a week ago.

3. Gather up the supplies I need and put on a tray.  Did this two days ago

4. Prepare garage space and bring out the supplies.   Did this before lunch.

5. Get to the gosh darn work of making the solutions and then cleaning up.  Did this in the middle of the afternoon.

This kind of dragged-out process is quite typical of my behavior.  It does get done, but sneaked in between other activities.

FOR LOVERS OF RED

By the way, if any of you love anything red as I do, do check out Sandra Rude’s latest post, “Fire Warp Beamed.”  It is drop-dead gorgeous.  And here I am working with a primarily green warp.  Sandra also dyes her yarns.  They are always beautiful.

Related Post:   Making Stock Solutions

“Dye Stock Solutions Made”  was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on July 1, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

HEATING THE WATER IN ACID DYEING

Posted by Peg in South Carolina



LANASET/SABRASET DYES
The dyes I use for silk (and wool) are Lanaset dyes, also called Sabraset dyes.  These dyes, technically, are not acid dyes at all. But they do use acid for their dyeing agent and they do function much like acid dyes.  Among professional dyes these are considered to be the best dyes for silk and wool because of their brilliant color, their ability to dye fiber evenly, and because of their light fastness. So, for all practical purposes, they are considered an acid dye.
 
I have been dyeing the needed warp yarn along with more weft yarn.  All in all, I had 4 skeins in quart Mason jars divided between two stock pots of hot water.

RAISING THE WATER TEMPERATURE
One of the pots was wider than the others.  And the pots had differing amounts of mason jars in them.  The problem in this situation, for me, is how to keep the water slowly raising, in both pots, from 120 degrees to 180-plus degrees over the period of one hour, a process required by the Lanaset/Sabraset dyes.

The particular problem here is that with the two different size pots and the differing number of jars, it is difficult to get the water in the two pots to rise in temperature at the same rate. 

There are other variables as well.  The two burners, though the largest on my stove, are slightly different in the strength of heat they produce.  And, while both stocks are (cheap) stainless steel, they are probably slightly different in such things as thickness.

I do use a gas stove, by the way.  I used to be stuck with an electric range.  I liked it neither for cooking nor dyeing.  A gas range is much much easier to regulate for both cooking and dyeing.
The ideal rate for the temperature to rise is one degree per minute, but I am not overly obsessive about this.  I simply use it as a guide.

But what I did learn today is that once the water in the pot (not in the mason jars) gets to just below a simmer, it is not hard to keep the temperature rising at the same time.
I measure the temperature, by the way, with a thermometer placed on one of the mason jars, one in each pot.

MAINTAINING THE WATER TEMPERATURE
There is other tricky part. After the first hour is up and the water has been raised to 180+ degrees, I need to keep the water at that temperature degrees for the next hour.  If I have done a good job at slowly raising the water, usually where the burner dial is set at the end of the first hour will do the job, though for the first ten minutes I check it frequently.  After that, unless I have done a really really rotten job(!), I can pretty much just let the pots sit and go about the rest of my life.

Related Posts: 
Dyeing the Skein
My Warping Board Eats Yarn

“Heating the Water in Acid Dyeing” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on March 1, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

SOME BRIGHTER RED-VIOLET WEFT YARNS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina


There are four skeins here.  The bottom one is the intense red-violet from my original dye bath.  The top three are my recent attempts at getting brighter red-violets.  The two middle ones are not so similar as they look in the photo but they are close.
Here is the formula for the original (bottom) color:

15% SAB Sun Yellow  
15% SAB Scarlet 
20% WF Acid Magenta   
50% SAB Violet

And here are the formulas for the next three:

Red Violet #1       
15% SAB Sun Yellow
30% SAB Scarlet
30% WF Acid Magenta
25% SAB Violet         

Red Violet #2       
15% SAB Sun Yellow 
45% SAB Scarlet 
25% WF Acid Magenta 
15% SAB Violet

        

The Brightest Red Violet       
88% SAB Scarlet        
10% WF Acid Magenta        
2% SAB Royal Blue

The last is a beautiful red and I am going to try to use it, but I a going to try to find another one that is closer to the violet.  Looking at the formulas and the colors themselves, it looks like I need to include some of the SAB Violet, perhaps only 5%, and perhaps omit the blue altogether.  Also, perhaps a bit more of the Acid Magenta (which has a definite blue cast). 

Actually simply an 85% Scarlet plus a 15% Violet might get me what I want.
This dyeing, however, will not happen for awhile.  Not until I see if I have more dyeing to do.  If I decide to treadle a structure that requires tabbies, I will have then a lot of dyeing of 120/2 bombyx silk to do.

PHOTOGRAPHY NOTES

1. The little whitish pinkish thing on the lower left side of the photo is part of the nylon cord I used to hold the skein in the dye pot.

2. The photo looks strange because I was playing with getting rid of the background and just showing the skein itself.  Not a success but a move forward.

“Some Brighter Red-Violet Weft Yarns” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on February 12, 2010. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

RISING EARLY TO DYE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I was determined to dye the rest of the warp yarn I so desperately needed.  To dye it this week.  An impossible week.  I finally decided on today—Wednesday.

I got up at 7—my usual time—but I cut my morning yoga very short. I also did not do anything with my hair…… I was dressed, breakfasted, and at the dyeing by 8:00.

To make life easier this morning, I had done a lot of preparation the night before.  The most time-consuming was to make the four individual dye solutions so that they would be ready to pour in the dye pots when the time came.  I also got all my equipment and supplies out, put water in the stock pots that would hold the dyeing jars, and put the skeins of yarn in a solution of hot water and Synthrapol to soak overnight.

I was finished a little before 11:00.  I could get on with the rest of my life.

One odd thing I noticed.  The yarn I was dyeing the deep reddish-greenish color for the warp looked gray in the dye pot for at least 30 minutes.  I worried a bit.  I needn’t have.  Sometime later it was the color it was supposed to be.  But this was a curious phenomenon.

Related Post:  My Warping Board Eats Yarn

“Rising Early to Dye” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on February 10, 2010. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

THE COUNTING CROSS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina 

When I wind a bout on the warping board, I put in a counting yarn at the cross.  With this particular warp I count off 20, 20 and 12 because there are 52 ends in a bout. 

More than halfway through, I realized how silly this is.  I don’t need three groups in each bout;  I only need two.  How much more sense it would be to wind 24 in one group and 28 in the other!

Or would it?  When I warp two ends at a time, it has been my habit to wind 20 in a segment of a bout, with the last segment generally being a smaller number, say 8 or 16.  Developing habits is very important as they help reduce errors. 

So I think what I could have done was to count off 20 and then 32.  Then, the problem is that I might more easily make a mistake with 32 than with 20, if only for the reason that I am winding more ends before I stop.  But it would certainly be more efficient to have to twist the tie cross only once and then tie it.

As for tying off 52 without a counting cross.  No.  I would absolutely have to double-check each bout and that would use up the time I would have saved by getting rid of the counting cross.

A GLITCH IN WARP WINDING

As for winding the warp, I have been momentarily derailed.  I did not have enough of one of the colors.  Since I didn’t want to dye just one skein, I have been working out more dye colors and winding more skeins.  It looks like this time i might be able to dye seven skeins in one go.  They are small skeins………..

 

“The Counting Cross” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on February 1, 2010. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

SUMMER WORKSHOP

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

After discussing it with my husband, I had decided to sign up for the Complex Weavers’ Summer workshop being held in Albuquerque this summer.  Then I learned that it had filled up within something like five days of registration having opened.  My husband wanted me to get on the waiting list.  But I figured that the waiting list was already pretty long.

Undaunted, I checked summer workshops in the area where I live.  Not only did I find one.  I found one that I would rather enroll in than Complex Weavers!

It is being held at the J.C. Campbell Folk School. Here is the description of the workshop:

Warp It! Paint It! Weave It!
June 6-12, 2010
Instructor: Kathie Roig

Want the beauty of a hand-painted warp but don't have the space, time, or equipment? Explore different methods of painting your warp (and perhaps the weft) using fabric paints, spontaneously adding color to yarn for functional or art pieces. Be ready to experiment with color, texture, and weave structure. Students must know how to dress a floor loom. Limited instruction will be given on warping, specific to the warp-painting process.

Does this sound heretical for someone who dyes her yarns?  Actually, I have no intention of stopping dyeing or substituting painting for dyeing.  What I do want to be able to do is to add painting to the dyeing.  There are fabric paints that can do things that dyes cannot do.

I have been thinking about trying this for a long time.  In fact, sitting on my loom right now is a small jar of gold Setacolor by Pebeo that I purchased recently in Asheville, NC.  It is on top of my loom because I am thinking of trying to use it on my upcoming silk crackle piece.

I am now registered for the workshop.

"Summer Workshop” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on December 21, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

WEIGHING THE SKEINS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Sitting on my triple balance scale in the kitchen are the three latest skeins of 60/2 silk I have wound for dyeing.  Each skein consists of 1200 yards.  Together, They weigh 109 grams.  Divided by three, that means each skein weighs 36.3 grams, which, for practical purposes I will round off to 36 grams.

Why not weigh each skein individually?  I think I might get more accurate results this way.  At any rate, it is just simpler.

"Weighing the Skeins” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on December 1, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

SOME GREEN WEFT YARNS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Here are the first of the green 60/2 silk weft yarns I have dyed.  As I had hoped, the colors are just fine.  One surprise, however, is the relatively little difference between the two darker yarns.  The lighter (greener one) at the top of the photo used 1.4% red violet to tone the yellow green;  the darker one in the middle used 18% red violet.  My sampling shows that there should have been very little difference between the skein at the top and the skein at the bottom (which is pure yellow-green with no red-violet toner at all in it).

Was this a result of mistakes in the stock solutions?  I have to assume so.  Is it a problem for the green crackle project?  No.  I am simply revising the formulas for my next group of greens.

I think also that I will make another liter of this yellow-green.  This liter will have in it none of the SAB Sun Yellow stock solution that I suspect was 2% instead of 1% DOS.

Related Post:  Dye Stock Solutions

"Some Green Weft Yarns” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 23, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

I OUGHT NOT TO BE A DYER REVISITED

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

NOTE TO MYSELF:  write out dyeing instructions so that there is not a grain of ambiguity in them.

This morning I made preparations to dye three skeins of 60/2 silk for weft.  They are to be three variations of yellow-green dulled with red-violet.  I did not have enough mixed yellow-green leftover from the warp dyeing.  And I did not have enough stock solution of the SAB Sun Yellow to mix the yellow green.  So I made another liter of the Sun Yellow.

The new liter looked a lot lighter and brighter than the earlier Sun Yellow.  Ageing of the stock solution?

I went ahead and mixed the blue and yellow for the yellow-green.  Then I looked more carefully at my notes for the warp dyeing.

I saw some directions for using 2% stock solutions.  And I remember that I had wanted to make 2% stock solution because of the large amount of Sun Yellow I was going to need. I wrote out my instructions are for using 1% solutions.  But in parentheses I included the amount I would need for 2% solutions.

I find it difficult to believe that I used 2% stock solutions with directions for mixing from 1% stock solutions.  That would have yielded an 8% depth of shade instead of the 4% I  had planned on.  Dyeing at 8% DOS would be ridiculous because there is no way the yarn would absorb that much dye. That would have meant that there would have been tons of dye solution left in the dyepot after the dyeing was done.   There wasn’t.

Yet the deeper color of the SAB Sun Yellow haunts me.

I am sure the blue stock solution was 1% because I had not needed to make up any new.  And I usually always make up my stock solutions at 1%.

I could throw out the yellow-green I just mixed, make up a new batch of yellow and a new batch of blue (I don’t have enough of the blue left to make another liter of yellow-green).  Or I could just go with what I have.

I think I will go with what I have.  It is not imperative that the colors be identical to my original intent.  They frequently are not anyway because I don’t always get right the jump from small batch dyeing to large batch dyeing. And, if some of the yellow that has gone into this yellow-green is 2% instead of 1%, the effect will be a bit of greater brightness in the color. Weighing this together with the extreme weakness of yellow, I can live with that.  I might even like it better.

So I am continuing on.

FAST FORWARDING A BIT

The yarn is now “cooking” in the dye pots.  And frankly, the colors look just fine.  The yarns wet always look darker and richer than when dry.  But I think that these colors will be quite wonderful.

Related Post: 
Dyeing Calculations Run Amuck
I Really Ought Not to be a Dyer

"I Ought Not to be a Dyer Revisited” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 20, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

DYEING THE WEFT YARNS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The warp yarns are now dyed—three full skeins of 60/2 silk.  Now I am working on the arithmetic for the 60/2 silk pattern weft yarns and the 120/2 silk binder weft yarns.

I have worked out the colors I want and their recipes. I have also calculated roughly the relative proportions of the colors.  And I am now in the process of winding off the yarns into skeins.

I am dyeing the wefts in many more color variations than I did the warp yarns.  For the 60/2 silk I am using 13 different variations.  For the 120/2 silk 14 different variations.  That means the individual skeins will be much much smaller.  And that means I will be able to dye at least 3 different skeins at a time.

Related Post:    Dyeing Books: Some Favorites

"Dyeing the Weft Yarns” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 16, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

IRIDESCENCE?

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I have now dyed two of the three skeins.  One is dry.  One is dyed, rinsed, and hanging to dry.  And the third is for Tuesday.

The one that is dry is very interesting.  I dyed it using 65% yellow green and 35% red violet. In some lights the dyed yarn looks a deep khaki green.  In other lights it looks reddish brown. I have taken two photos showing the yarn’s appearance in different light, one is incandescent;  the other is florescent.   The yarn, by the way, is much more evenly dyed than the photos would suggest.

When the yarn was in the dyepot, the water actually looked red. So red that I wondered if the yarn was going to turn out red. 

Even the camera lens seems to want to separate out these colors.  I wonder if the shine of the silk isn’t contributing to this iridescence.

My guess is that when this warp yarn is crossed by yellow-green weft, the warp will look brown.  But when it is crossed by red-violet weft, the warp will look green.

The evenness of the dyeing pleased me.  Normally when I dye yarn, especially such large skeins of yarn, I shift the yarn around on the loops holding the yarn from the rod.  But I had read doing that this is a no-no.  Only lift the yarn in and out of the water.  That is what I did with this skein. 

"Iridescence?” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 6, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

LET THE DYEING BEGIN!

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The yarn is in the dyepot on the gas range.  At the moment the temperature has reached 160 degrees  and I am giving it 20 minutes to reach 180 degrees.  I carry the thermometer around with me so that I remember to go back and check.  And raise and lower the skein from time to time as well.

The white cord is looped through the skein and tied to the wooden dowel.  I use the wooden dowel to lift the skein up and down in the water so that it will dye evenly.   The red nylon cord visible on the left handle is attached to a thermometer which is in the water.

On the left is my green heavy duty plastic gloves and my timer.  The white basin is where the yarn was soaking overnight and to which the yarn will return when it is dyed and ready to be rinsed and set to dry.

The red-and-white checked fabric is vinyl yardage used to make tablecloths, among other things. 

The pot is stainless steel, but Walmart stainless steel.  That means I cannot let the water get as high as the rivets on the inside of the pot or they will rust out (the rivets are not stainless steel).  Also, the walls and bottom of the pot are thin so I have to watch for scorching.  I think I have an idea that will help, but we shall see.  In any case, I have read about using marbles to keep the yarn off the bottom, so I think I will buy some.

The beams of light are LED beams from my professional range top hood.  The hood is on, getting rid of the heat, humidity, and and any airborne acid from the citric acid I use.

Related Post:  Dyeing the Skein

"Let the Dyeing Begin” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 3, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

I WANT TO DYE THE WARP, GOSH DARN!

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

But I need roughly three hours of relatively uninterrupted time at home to do a batch of immersion dyeing.  That’s not going to happen till Tuesday.   Sigh……..

Not that there aren’t things to do.  I am in the process of examining the threading and threading blocks for where and how I want the warp colors to change.  I need to do that before I start winding the warp.

And I can always start winding the skeins for the dyeing of the weft yarns. 

But, gosh darn, I want to dye the warp yarn!

"I Want to Dye the Warp, Gosh Darn” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 29, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

MORE DYE STOCK SOLUTIONS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

After working out the calculations for dyeing the warp skeins, I checked my stock solutions and discovered I needed to make more Sabraset Sun Yellow and Sabraset Violet. That meant moving out to my dyeing station in the garage.

It’s just a small place, the tops of two cabinets, covered with newspaper. Easily set  up and taken down.

The scale dominates the scene—my triple beam balance scale.  Usually for dye powders I have used my little 10-gram balance scale.  My chemist friend assures me this is the same scale that drug dealers use……….   Well, it must surely be accurate, then!

But I decided to drag out the big scale, and honestly, it did seem a bit easier to use.  That is, it seemed easier to get the right amount of powder in, largely because I’m putting it in a larger container.  Ten grams of dye powder usually fills the little scale’s pan to almost overflowing. So I shall probably continue to use the big triple balance.

Directly behind the scale is a very inexpensive (i.e., cheap) electric blender.  It does a much better just of mixing the dye powder into solution, especially for those colors that just don’t want to get mixed and insist on clumping.  Like Sun Yellow. 

The small clear plastic containers on the right in the front are what I use to put the dye powder into for weighing.  The white powder mask is also visible on the tray.  Invisible are the green disposable plastic gloves.

Just outside the garage to the right is a hose which I can use for anything that needs to be rinsed out in between measuring different colors.  In our Georgia house,  we added the garage and I had a sink put in at the time.  That sink out to be a wonderful investment, both for dyeing and for cleaning up after gardening.

Related Post:  Making Stock Solutions

"More Dye Stock Solutions” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 29, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

DECISION TIME

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The time has come for me to knuckle down and make color decisions.  This is always an exciting and yet very frightening time for me.  Suddenly I feel so helpless.  I feel like I am acting on whims and can no longer see what the piece is going to look like.  Its idea is gone.  Everything feels like guessing.

But I have made my decisions and I have worked out the dyeing details insofar as I could.

Basically I am using only colors that come from my yellow-green/red-violet dyeing samples.  This is a safe decision because each color will relate in some way to all the other colors.  And it is a complementary color-scheme. There are some exceptions, but those exceptions will happen in the less obvious binder wefts.

For the warp I decided to use three very dull colors, one which veers towards the red-violet, the other two which veer a bit to the yellow-green. The colors will move from left to center and from right to center.  Calculations for these yarns are easy.  I will simply dye three Treenway 60/2 silk skeins.  They weigh 100 grams each.  The calculations are already done.

The warp yarn colors will be the background support for the weft yarns. It is in the weft yarns that the major color play will happen. The pattern wefts will use these same dulled warp colors, plus various gradations of the brighter yellow-green as well as the pure red-violet. The binder wefts, in 120/2 silk,  will be the same colors plus there will be some red, blue, and yellow wefts.  Not very much of this latter group.

I  have worked out how many yards I want for each of the colors I am going to use, for both the 120/2 silk and the 60/2 silk.Now I have to wind these off into skeins and weigh them before I can complete the calculations.

Related Posts: 
Yellow-Greens and Some Red-Violet
More on Color

"Decision Time” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 27, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

GREEN AND RED DYE SAMPLING

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The movement is from 75% red + 25% green on the far left to 1.5% red + 98.5% green on the far right.  The depth of shade is 4%.

I’m glad I did this.

The dye sampling is now done.

Related Post:   Done with Dye Sampling?

"Green and Red Dye Sampling” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 21, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

INITIAL CALCULATIONS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I have done things a little backwards. Normally I would figure out the width I wanted a piece to be and start with that.  But because I am not interested in the precise width of this project but am more concerned with precise thread patterning, I started with the number of ends. Here is a copy of these initial calculations:

5.5 yards seems like a doable length for me to get a well- and evenly-tensioned warp. But for weighting the warp ends, I shall have to check to see if I have enough weights to add them to one-inch segments.

This does not yet tell me how I am going to use different colors in the warp.  I am not quite ready to deal with the issue just yet.

RED

By the way, I changed my mind about the red as I started dyeing today.  I decided that Sabraset Scarlet leaned a bit too much towards yellow, so I decided to use a mix of 50% SAB Scarlet and 50% WFA Magenta, which leans to blue.  Mixing a yellow-leaning red with a blue-leaning red will never result in the brilliant kind of red that a pure red would be.  But there are no pure reds in the Sabraset dyes.  So this is my best compromise.

Related Post:  Recent Comments and Questions

"Initial Calculations” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 20, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.