The muse is stirring----

Must be spring.  I am starting to get some ideas.  And- I'm slowly finding the ambition to do something about them.

I've wanted to do something to serve as a memory of my trip to Cuba last March, but not something traditional or similar to any other memory of Cuba.  I have an idea, but it needed a special fabric, one that was without any realistic shape or form.  This meant that it would have to be hand dyed.  So using a Low Water Immersion (LWI) technique I actually started a dye bath--the first one in months.

I am quite pleased with the result and finished with enough fabric for the front, back, and binding of a nice size wall hanging.  I chose a deep yellow and medium blue for the dye.  My hope was that I would end up with some yellow to represent the sun, blue to represent the water and sky, and green to represent the glorious foliage.

At first I thought this might be a little dark for what I have in mind, so tried another dye bath of deep yellow and brick.  Nope, not what I wanted at all, and it was too small for more than maybe the front and binding.

But the funny thing about dye baths is that one always leads to another, so I did two more.  Staying with the brick coloured dye, I wanted to find out what the result would be if I used both brick and slate blue.

I am well pleased with this piece as well, although the brick colour, despite being added to the dye bath first, has all but disappeared during the dyeing process.

So there had to be a fourth dye bath, this time with brick and dark green.  Now these two dyes are close enough that one has to worry about complements cancelling each other out and ending up with mud. But happily this was minimal, although the brick was very much muted.  I think this may be my favourite of them all.

My process was fairly relaxed.  I try to never get too obsessive about my dyeing, preferring to be challenged by serendipity.  This may be why my favourite process is LWI.  For the first time, I soaked my fabric in soda ash before hand, and added it to the vessel wet.  Many years ago, when I took my first dyeing course, we were taught to immerse the dry fabric in the dye and then add the soda ash--dissolved in hot water-- about 20 minutes later.  I don't think the different process made any difference to the final result, although there may be fewer sharp edges to the colour changes with using wet fabric.  

Yep, gonna do some more!