Creative Colour 1- Materials List2021-12-07T22:36:07+00:00

Creative Colour Online Workshop: Materials List

In this workshop we’ll be using high quality acid dyes to dye silk fabrics, wool fibres, wool prefelt, and finished felt.

You can dye all of these to experiment with all of the options, or choose just one or two types of materials to dye during the workshop, knowing you can always come back to the class instructions to dye the others as you want/need to!

In this class, we’ll dye 11-12 colours. In each colour, you’ll dye: 1 yard/metre silk, 2 ounces/50grams wool fibre, prefelt pieces and finished felt samples. Note: if you don’t do any nuno felting, or use silk in any embellishments, you can choose to focus on working with the wools: fibres, prefelts, and finished felt.

Materials List:

  • White/natural silk fabric:  12-15 metres/yards. This can be silk habotai/paj/pongee or silk gauze/chiffon/tissue silk or silk margilan. We’ll be dyeing 11 x 1 metre/yard pieces during the class, but having a few extra yards/metres is nice to have on hand to make some extra after you’ve completed the class pieces. See note above.
  • Wool fibre- natural white: 600 grams/21 ounces. Work with the wool breed/micron count that you most like to work with. As a standard, work with merino, 19 micron wool as a great all-purpose wool. Natural grey and natural fawn wools are amazing to work with as well, if you have access to these.
  • Prefelt:  120 grams/4.25 ounces wool fibres to make your own prefelt or twelve 25 x 25cm (10 x 10”) squares bought commercial prefelt. This will be about 1 metre/yard of 150 cm/60” wide commercial prefelt.
  • Finished Felt:  120grams/4.25 ounces wool fibres to make 12 finished felt samples to dye.  Instructions for making your own prefelts and the finished felt samples will be provided.

It is an invaluable learning experience to dye wool fibres in each of these forms- to see how you need to treat the fibres and the resulting colours, when dyed as fibre, as prefelt and as finished felt.

  • Dyes-Dharma Trading acid dyes, Jacquard acid dyes, Ashford acid dyes, Greener Shades acid dyes.  Use the brand that is most readily available to you.  These standard dyes are excellent for use in our Introduction to acid dyeing. The dyes can all be mixed and used interchangeably.  The most light and wash fast acid dyes are Lanaset/Sabraset/Telana style acid dyes. You can also use these in this class.  Landscape dyes are not appropriate for use in this class as they have a different composition that includes the acid in the dye mix. 
  • I suggest starting with the smallest size of whichever dye you choose/can get easily.  This will vary from about 15g/1/2oz to 50g/1.75oz of each colour- cool yellow (more like a bright lemon yellow than a gold yellow), turquoise, red, magenta, black, plus one colour that catches your fancy!  
  • Citric Acid  1 lb (500grams) or you can substitute household white vinegar. Citric acid is great to work with as it has no scent when dyeing.

 

  • Important Note: All tools used for dyeing need to be dedicated for dyeing and not used again for cooking or serving. This list looks long, but they are all quite inexpensive, easy to find items. If op shops/charity shops/second hand stores are open where you are, look there first for the items below!

 

  • 3-4 Wide Mouth Glass Canning Jars- 3 or 4  1litre/qt or 34/ 32oz size. For this class, you can also use the slightly smaller, glass pasta sauce jars.
  • Stainless Steel Stock Pot- 10-12qt. Roughly 18-23cm (7-9″) tall x 25-28cm (10-11″) in diameter. One with a heavy base is ideal, but a second-hand or thinner, inexpensive pot is great for getting started. You can often find these at lower cost at hardware stores, or large supermarkets or department stores. Ordering online can often be more expensive. Use what you can find for this introductory class!
  • Dust Mask – an N95 mask is good for this (we’re all used to those now!)
  • Rubber gloves
  • 2 wooden or metal spoons
  • Measuring Spoons-1 teaspoon and 1 Tablespoon
  • Mini kitchen scale- should have a range from 0.1g- 500g+. This is also really helpful for weighing out your wool. You can use this in many felting projects as well, so it is a worthwhile purchase. 
  • Paper Towels or 2 old towels
  • Small plastic squeeze bottles- about 250ML.  Minimum of 6. It can be nice to have a few extra for custom colour blends.  
  • Funnel that will fit into the squeeze bottle top             
  • A 2 cup (500ml) measuring cup- glass or plastic              
  • Optional: metal kitchen tongs
  • Optional: candy thermometer
  • Optional: Cardboard box- approximately 40cm(16″) cube.  This is helpful for mixing the dye stock solutions to catch any excess powder. The box size should allow you to get your hands into easily. 
  • Optional: electric crockpot/slow cooker/turkey roaster – I’ve decided to add in this extra section on using this tool to dye fibres in both solid, tonal and variegated colours. These can be found second hand. The pot must be dedicated for dye use only- don’t use your household one for dyeing and then return it to the kitchen for cooking!  The slow cooker/roaster is excellent is your main interest is in dyeing wool fibres, roving and tops.

 

Below are a selection of possible sources for the materials for this class. As much as possible, I’ve looked for sources that supply more than one of the items you’ll need.

Sources for Dyes: 

Canada:

US:

Australia:

UK:

 

Wool and Silk Fabrics:

Canada:

 

US:

Australia:

UK:

 

 

Fiona lives and works within the unceded traditional territories of the Hul’qumi’num and SENĆOŦEN speaking peoples.

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