Procion Dyeing - Anne Covell, Thelma Todd - April Meeting 2023

 Stored in our upstairs cupboard are large containers of dye and yesterday we were able to use them again.

  Thelma demonstrated several different ways of dyeing from low contact to plastic bag dyeing varying the ratios of two different colours e.g. yellow/blue.

She showed us the very attractive cards she had made with  small dyed pieces,

and a beautiful box.

Anne then went on to explain about the range of natural fabrics that could be dyed and showed us some beautiful samples.

We were ready to have a go for ourselves, and two dye stations were set up  so we could help ourselves, and small coloured pieces of fabric began to appear in yogurt pots.

Rows of plastic bags began to appear with different coloured fabric in the bottom.

Some members had a go at making a range of sympathetic colours by using two colours and varying the ratio e.g. 5:0, 4:1, 3:2, 2:3, 1:4, 0:5

Members then became more adventurous and started using more than two colours and dyeing lace, trims, threads and pictures with exciting results.

It was a good and exciting workshop and  members took home bags of dyed fabrics to rinse, dry and iron the following day. They would then have a pile of new fabrics ready to use in their embroidery.

A big thank you goes to Anne and Thelma for setting it all up for us and giving us suggestions as to what we could do. It was a most enjoyable day.

You can see below a range of colours made by adding yellow and turquoise in ratios of 5:0, 4:1, 3:2, 2:3, 1:4, 0:5.

They have an affinity which  the dyed threads also have because they were dyed with the same dyes.