More About The Dyeing

 

I've just finished dyeing the fabric for the last set of bags, though I haven't finished sewing some of the other dyed batches. (See previous post for what I'm up to.) It's a milestone anyway.

It helped that all the bags are the same colour, so I could keep reusing the dyepot, adding more salt and dye and sometimes some more water. 

The first batch I dyed was 'interesting'. It turned out that the fabric shrank in one direction but not the other. Luckily I had dyed from the middle of the list of sizes and was able to cut the shrunk bits down to the size for the smallest bag. After that I had to allow for the shrinkage when I cut the fabric. I also had to allow for the fact that when you turn the bag, you lose a little bit of width. So the distance between the side seams needs to be slightly more than the required width. 

With this cotton dye, unlike wool dye, what you see is not what you get. When I put the fabric and cord into the bath, it looked a pale lilac colour. Eek. The temptation is to put more dye powder in. But it's not necessary, because it darkens during the dye process. And then lightens a bit from wet to dry. 

I still have a lot of sewing to do, so I had better go and get on with it.