Christinia Drennen Coghill is certified in the Redding Method of dyeing. She provided us with a handout of what the Redding Method entails, but for the purpose of the class, we just needed to do what she told us.
We each worked on an individual burner with a selection of powdered dyes and fiber. There was roving, clean raw wool, and unclean raw wool. Christina wasn't sure about the breeds, but she had us add the different fibers in a certain order. I don't think it mattered much as I doubt I would dye such an eclectic bunch of samples at one time.
The dyes were Pro Chemical & Dye WashFast Acid dyes, in yellow, green, red, orange, blue.
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One trick to this method is to not have too much water; otherwise, the dyes will migrate too far and you'll wind up with one muddy color. Another trick is to use a metal chopstick to keep the simmering water from bubbling too much in the center; otherwise, you'll end up with felt.
I've been to dyeing workshops where we add a "glug" of vinegar to the water to help set the colors, but this is the first one where we also added a "glug" of shampoo. The idea here is that you can clean and dye the fiber at the same time. It seemed to work just fine, but the fiber wasn't all that dirty to begin with.
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Once the water and fiber reached an almost-too-hot-to-touch temperature, we added the colors in pie-shaped proportions, using wood or metal chopsticks. The technique is to add the powdered dye near the center but not at the center, then feather it toward the outside edge, being careful not to get each color too close to its neighbor. The order was important: yellow first, then blue, then red, then orange, then green. The red and blue are really dynamic and will take over the pot if you are not careful.
Once you are satisfied with your pie wedges, you work the colors toward the center and toward the edges, so that there is no white showing. Below, Christina's pot is on the left, another participant's is on the right, and my messy attempt at being "artistic" and "experimental" is in the center.
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At this point, we turned off the burners and went shopping and ate lunch while the pots cooled. Once we could handle the fiber, another glug of shampoo was added and we repeatedly rinsed and spun the results, using salad spinners. And that was it. At home, I rinsed my fiber again before spreading it out to dry under a ceiling fan.
My initial impression was that I used too much water and not enough dye, as the colors looked more pastel than saturated. I ran the fiber through a drum carder, and it looks like green and orange dominate. I'm not too thrilled with this outcome as it reminds me of Kook Aid.
Since I still had some dye left over, I decided to repeat the process with yarn. Using Cascade 220 blanks, I soaked the yarn, heated it up, and added wedges of dye. (And it just occurred to me that I forgot the glug of vinegar.)
While I think the ratio of water to fiber was better this time, I didn't use enough dye to really saturate the yarn.
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So I tried it again with better results.
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And then I stopped because how much rainbow fiber does one need? Some day I will spin the fiber from the workshop and depending on the results, I may overdye it.
So what did I learn? Acid dyeing is really, really easy compared to dyeing with natural materials, and the colors can be more vibrant and less experimental. Roving and raw fiber are tricky to work with, so I think I will stick to dyeing yarn. And I don't really like the idea of cleaning the fiber and dyeing it at the same time, but that's just me.
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