Parfait Dyeing

Posted by Laura McGrath-guest during February--

Lots of fun stuff going on here with Ann Johnston’s DVD Color by Accident this month!  I’m going to show my results with some of her Parfait Dyeing technique.

First, I mixed up all the dye solutions, using the 14 pure colors.  I used 2 cups of water and 3-4 tablespoons of dye powder to each bottle.  (And realized later, after doing a bunch of dyeing, that I forgot to add the 4-8 tablespoons of urea that I was supposed to include—whoops!)

For the parfait dyeing, I wet my fabric pieces that were each about 18” x 44”, and wrung out the excess water.  Then I put one piece in a large jar and scrunched it up really good.  I took a one cup container and put about 4 tablespoons of Intense Blue dye solution in it, then filled with water to have a full cup.  I poured it on the fabric, waited about 5 minutes, then poured in about ½ cup of soda ash/water solution.  Second piece was done the same way, this time using Tangerine dye solution, and adding soda ash again.  For the third piece I used Strong Orange dye concentrate, and again added soda ash, and squished it all down tightly.

Then I waited an hour, and rinsed it all out, and washed in the washing machine.

Here are the finished pieces:

I did this whole process again, the second time using a stronger solution of the same dye concentrates (8 tablespoons dye solution of each color).  I thought I would get a really deeper color, but it didn't make it twice as dark.

Here are the two sets side-by-side--

It surprised me that the Tangerine and Strong Orange colors were pretty much taken over by the blue, creating so much green.  The best part of this process is that it was SO easy! 

Check out more of my Ann Johnston dyeing results on my blog, Periwinkle Art Quilts.

Dye solutions and 'make life easier' calculations

A new blogpost from Nienke:

My calculations of 'how much dye is needed for this piece of fabric' were a bit confusing, at least to some of you. So, let's make my steps clear in a blogpost. (And let's make sure, this is not what Ann Johnston is teaching, it's just the way I prefer to do it, because it makes life easier. This way of thinking and calculating was a result due to the high cotton and dye prices in Europe, and also, not wanting to waste any dyes for environmental reasons).

First of all, I make all colours in the same concentrate, 10%. That is, 10 grams of Procion MX powder to 100 ml. of water (1 deciliter). If they are all the same, my brains don't have to think that much, if I find a bottle in my cupboard. It's always 10%.

To avoid messing around with dye powders, I use those juice bottles with a big opening. Put them on my scale and press Tare, so it resets to zero even with an empty bottle on top of it.

I add 10 grams of powder,

and 100 ml. of water

and a drop of dishwasher for better dissolving of the powder.

Tighten the lid firmly and then I start shaking.
Can't make it easier then this. I even forgot to wear my gloves and actually, if I am careful, I don't need them.

NB for this special project, I mixed on forehand Orange: 7 grams of Yellow MX-3R with 3 grams of Red MX 8B with 100 ml. of water. And for the blue: Turquoixe Blue MX G 9 grams with 2 grams of a black without a name ;-) with 110 ml. of water.

So now that I have my 10% solution premixed ready, I start calculating how much solution I need for a full colour. I know from experience that I need  20 ml. of a 10% solution for a FatQuarter of cotton fabric (each quality). I roughly estimated that this piece was 4,5 FQ's so I needed a total of 90 ml. dyesolution.
I divided the total amount in two colours, 45 ml. of an orange, 45 ml. of a blue.

And the good thing about this way of calculating is that you can remake your unique pieces, look at this picture, one day later, same amount of dye, same tray. I only was too impatient I guess or I didn't press the same time, the piece at the left hand is the newer piece. But you can see that I am pretty close to the original.

Just to give you an idea, these are the tools I use for measuring: these spoons are sold by worldwide known IKEA: http://www.ikea.com/be/nl/catalog/products/10233259/

It says 15 ml = one tablespoon. 5 ml = one teaspoon.

So talking in spoons, you would need one tablespoon and one teaspoon for one Fat Quarter (for a full colour, no gradation)

They are really great to use and very well priced, see if you can get them if you are interested in this way of calculating dyes!!

A Color Controversy and Wheel

Hi, this is Judith.  There has been some controversy over how many colors of dye are really "needed."  The simplest answer is that I don't know how many colors YOU need. But let me explain why I plan to use the 14 pure colors now that Ann has enlightened me.

It is true that to create all the colors on the color wheel an artist only really needs red/blue/yellow or magenta/cyan/yellow, depending on the color wheel preference.  Some artists restrict their colors to only those three. The reasoning is that all the secondary and tertiary colors will be made up of the same primaries and will therefore be harmonious.  That makes sense when the pigments are bound together in a paint.

The procion dyes are not bound together. When I mix a red and a blue together to make purple, I still have red powder and blue powder rather than purple powder.  Each of those powders have their own unique properties meaning they will bind to the fabric (with soda ash) at different rates. This is what creates the "color splits" that we dyers talk about all the time.  The 14 pure colors won't split.  The 14 colors mixed together will split (give a different color aura) depending on each color's unique properties.

So, in low water immersion dyeing when I want a mottled fabric, I might choose to use more than one pure blue so that the blue dyes might split and add extra depth and interest to my finished fabric.  Just think of the possible splits you can get by using one pure red and multiple pure blues when mixing a purple.  I might even use the turquoise blue dye that has a bit of green in it in order to desaturate the red dye and add that additional element in the finished product;  I might end up with a turquoise split.  If I used a yellow to blend with the blue for a green, I might end up with a yellow split.  It is all about the possible splits.

That is why I will use all 14 pure dyes from Prochem and, if I were in Europe, I would be using the additional pure colors they  have access to. To better understand the properties of the pure colors  is why I created my own dye color "wheel" and will be making a color dictionary.

Here is my color "wheel."  I simply placed a few drops of each pure dye concentrate where I thought it would fall on the color wheel.  I could have been much more restrained and tried to constrain the colors but I chose to let them bleed together.  You will notice that I did go back in to circle and label where I thought the color was most true. And here are detail shots.

Tray dyeing with Ann Johnston

The title of Ann Johnstons new DVD, Color by accident, is so - not - me ;-).
But in fact, I LOVED this DVD. And with adding my own calculations to the dyemethods, I guess, we can skip the 'accident' part of it ;-).

One of the things I learned was 'don't be afraid to touch the fabric soaking in the dye'. If you don't want white spots, you actually really have to work it through!

So, I got one of those small cutlery trays, and a long piece of fabric,  soaked it in sodawater, squeezed the water out and fanfolded it.

Calculated that I needed about 90 ml. of a 10% solution of Procion MX for the whole piece, divided this in 45 ml of orange and 45 ml of blue. Added the same quantity of water to each color, so the dye can flow a bit. (For those curious, my calculation method is pretty relaxed,  I need for a full colour, 20 ml of 10% concentrate for a FQ cotton. Just count or estimate the number of FQ's you have in your fabric. No weighing, no calculator needed).

Put the 45 ml. orange plus 45 ml. of water in the tray, and put the fanfolded fabric on top of it, carefully, making an U turn, leaving the folds out of the dye in this stage.

After 5 minutes, I poured the 45 ml. of blue plus 45 ml. water on top of it, waited a minute or two.

After a few minutes, I started pressing with my gloved fingers, thoroughly to get the dye solution into the fabric. More than I ever dared... I was always so afraid to get mud colours. It doesn't look good, does it? But everything went perfect.

Take care with rinsing, first rinse cold while the package is still fanfolded. You have to get rid of the soda before you start rinsing the whole cloth, that will prevent much of the colour-staining.

Et voila, this is the final result and I am so very happy with this, thank you Ann for healing me from 'touch fear'.

Next monday another variation so stay tuned, it's all about low water immersion dyeing this month!
NB. If you missed the trailer, here is a sneak preview of the DVD:

Fun with Ann Johnson

The first time Judith and I got together for our play date, I was a bit tired and spent most of the time taking photos of her working so I was REALLY looking forward to having my own fun with some of these technique.

After working with Judith I realized the importance of properly sized containers. These were just a few I picked up at the dollar store. I also used a small bucket, plastic bags and an empty DVD lid (very nice).

I'll just mention two of the experiments I did even though two involved more than one piece of fabric.

For some reason I was obsessed with this white vent hosing so it was the first thing I tried. I had an almost full yard of LWI fuchsia fabric. It was easy to roll up, probably the easiest , and I ran a string through the center to compress the vent hose and fabric as best I could. I then pout the entire roll into a plastic bag with 1 cup water, 1 cup of dye solution and after 15 minutes, one cup of soda ash.

While it was in the pan I rotated it about every 15 minutes trying to get uniform coverage. This was the easiest of all the techniques because it opened like an accordion when done. The others were WAY harder to get off their resist piece.

The dye solution on this piece was 1 Tablespoon each: Purple, Boysenberry and Basic Blue with enough water to equal one cup. I did wait the 15 mintes before adding the soda ash but just left the fabric in the bag with all the liquids for one hour. Ann was right, one hour is enough.

 washed

Dried and ironed

I really like this and it may be my favorite but other techniques had great results as well.


This was the most beautiful soft piece of Rayon Challis you can imagine. I had dyed it nutmeg although it was much more a rusty color than red in real life.
I don't have a before but this is a section of a quilt made with the Rayon.

This was rolled on the plastic chain and the dye solution was 1 tablespoon each intense blue, navy and boysenberry. It soaked in the water and dye solution about 15 minutes then I added the soda ash and waited an hour.

Secrets About Dye Concentrates

How long will your dyes last in the fridge before the colors start weakening?  That doesn't mean the concentrates are unusable.  Just means that the dye concentrates are lighter in color. That is important to know if you are using recipes for a specific mixed color. Vicki Welsh has shared some of her knowledge on the subject.

Vicki is a professional dyer and has more experience than I will ever have.  When she read my post on dye colors she linked me to a post on her blog from 2011.  She experimented to find out how long dye concentrates will last in the fridge.  She has allowed me to post the chart of her results on the Fire Blog. Thanks, Vicki!

The colors are the Dharma Trading names. The results are listed below. The dye showed the changes the week AFTER this date.

Fuchsia - 56 days - 8 weeks (means 8 weeks of good results and the dyed showed weakness at 9 weeks)
Cobalt - 63 days - 9 weeks
Sky Blue - 35 days - 5 weeks
Deep Orange - 63 days - 9 weeks
Grape - 63 days - 9 weeks
Turquoise - 35 days - 5 weeks
Jet Black - 35 days - 5 weeks
Deep Yellow - 63 days - 9 weeks
Cerulean - 49 days - 7 weeks
Lemon Yellow - 56 days - 8 weeks

Light Red - 56 days - 8 weeks

Please go here to see her full post and here to check out her blog. You can drool over her dyed fabrics in her Etsy shop.

Again, thank you, Vicki, for sharing your knowledge with our readers!

February--A Month to Dye For!

This month we are going to talk about all things Ann Johnston and what she can teach us about dyeing.  Ann has even agreed to do an interview with us!  Yeah! The above picture is grabbed from Ann's website's gallery. Please do go to her gallery and see more of her work.

I thought I was a decent dyer.  Not an expert but certainly not a novice.  I mean I had dyed for years---low water immersion, snow, ice, parfait, tray, thickened, silk screened, painted, scraped, sprayed, shiboried, batiked, printed, and probably more. But I was wrong. Watching the Color by Accident DVD pointed out to me that I had tried lots of techniques but that I had not taken the time to learn the dyes themselves.

It is time to change that and I am taking you along with me!  Beth Schellenberger, Laura McGrath, and Inke are helping me on the journey this month along with a few readers who have volunteered to show you their experiments.

Lesson one:  DYE COLORS

Let me start with the dye colors. Do you ever get confused about which blue, yellow, or red to buy?  I know that I did.  And then the zillions of colors that you can spend your money on.  Which ones are fabulous and which ones will sit on your shelf?  And how many of them do I need? Ann gave me some valuable clues.

Did you know there are only 14 pure MX Procion Dyes?  At first I thought that meant "pure" like you use the term for colors on a color wheel.  I was expecting a color wheel full range of colors.

Not quite.  The MX pure dyes are those made from one chemical.  ALL of the other colors are mixtures of the pure dyes.  You will  notice when you see the list that there are 4 yellows, 1 orange, 2 reds, 2 purples (neither of which is called purple), 5 blues and NO green.

So the answer to which colors are necessary is 14.  All other colors are mixtures of these 14.  Now that doesn't mean not to ever buy any other colors.  I love Chartreuse and find it more practical to buy it mixed than to mix it each time.  You might have favorite mixed colors that you want to keep buying. But do start your buying with the 14 pure colors.

Here is the list of the pure colors from Prochem.  You can order similar ones from Dharma but Prochem was nice enough to post a list.  I was going to copy and  paste the list here but it copies poorly.  You will have to use the link to read the colors. The list from the Prochem site does print very nicely.

My first step when I learned that fact was to go through my dyes and find out which ones of the pure dyes I had and then order the rest.  I won't bore  you with how many OTHER reds, greens, oranges, pinks, etc I had.

My  next step was to go to the store and buy containers to mix and store my dye concentrates in.  I dye often enough that I can store some dyes already mixed with water (NOT soda ash water) in the fridge without worrying about the dye's losing their strength.  Now when ever I want to dye, I don't have to hunt down my mask to mix the dye powders!  One messy step already accomplished! The dye concentrate recipe is: 1 Tablespoon of dye powder/ 2 Tablespoons Urea/ enough water to make 1 cup of concentrate. Shake.

Just a note:  I wish that I had a separate fridge for all my dyes but I don't.  I store my dyes in the same fridge with my food.  The mixed dyes are clearly labeled, in similar containers, that container shape is not used for anything else but dyes, and they are in a designated location in the fridge.  With those rules I don't worry about my  husband and me mistaking the grape dye for grape juice.  But I don't have kids at home anymore either.  If you have kids, you might think about how to handle that problem before storing your dyes.

My  next project is to develop a color wheel of the pure dyes.  That will help me decide which of the 4 yellows and 5 blues I want to mix together to get green.