I received a complementary set of "Rainbow one pot"
dyes from Ashford Handcrafts Ltd. These are acid milling dyes
and in the set I received there were the three basics, yellow,
scarlet and blue. The instructions were very basic and easy to
understand and dealt only with dyeing fleece in the pot. While
this would suit spinners it had little or no relevance to myself
as a weaver who mainly uses commercially spun wool. (Unfortunately
Ashford like most retailers of dyestuffs made no reference in
the instructions as to the safe disposal of used dye stuffs.)
Due to the fact that I was committed to giving a demonstration
of warp dyeing at my local guild I decided to experiment and
use the dyes to paint a warp using the wet warp system and fixing
them in the microwave. These notes are the results of this procedure.
The wool used was 2/14 worsted merino from Broadford and was
a natural colour.
The warp was 18 foot long consisting of loom waste and two
7 foot scarf lengths.
The warp was raddled, stretched on the bench and the first
scarf painted in a traditional dry warp method with fibre reactives.
The second section was treated differently. First the stretched
warp was liberally brushed with a water / white vinegar mix with
a small dash of wetting agent added to ensure penetration. The
dyes were dissolved in boiling water in small containers, no
vinegar was added. The three dyes were then dribbled, splashed
and poured onto the wet warp. I allowed space between colours
in the hope that some capillary creeping would take place and
cause blending without resulting in greyness. (I was worried
that scarlet being a cold red would not give a true orange when
mixed with the warm yellow and that the same yellow when mixed
with the blue would result in a grey/green).
The two scarf lengths were rolled in plastic and placed in
a microwave bowl and given 5 minutes on high and 15 minutes at
medium high then rinsed in warm water after which they were treated
as a normal warp.
I was very impressed with the almost ultramarine blue that
blended well with the warm yellow to create a rich variety of
greens though admixture with the scarlet produced a less than
appealing brown. The yellow was too cool to produce a rich orange,
but it did result in a variety of browns that rivalled most natural
dyestuffs.
Colour-wise when one considers that only three colours were
used it was at least as good as any three colours in the fibre
reactives that I normally use. If using in future I would have
to consider a larger range and experiment would be necessary
to gauge depth of tone.
While the wet warp painting I employed with this dyelot worked
well I would in future add the vinegar to the dyestuffs as recommended
by the supplier. And take the further step of applying a colour
and allowing it to sit for 10 minutes when it would be blotted
with newsprint to remove surplus moisture before applying the
next colour, repeating this step between all colours.