Color, Thread, and Bethany

This little project of dyeing threads for hand embroidery has swelled to the point it has shaped the pattern of my days.  As the colors are intoxicating, I have divided dyeing into color groups:  warm colors in the morning, cool colors in the afternoon.  This way I can move along without dwelling too much with my favorite colors, to the neglect of the rest of the color wheel.  First thing each morning I begin rinsing out the thread and fabric from the previous day's work, one color group at a time.  Then to let them soak, rinse a second time, soak in more clear water, and a third rinse.  Some of the colors need a fourth and fifth rinse (I am thinking about the seductive reds and deep blues), but eventually the water runs clear enough to hang or lay them out for drying.

I do not dip the threads in dye pots.  I paint them with my (gloved) fingers, occasionally using a brush.  I do not want consistent color-- the commercial manufacturers are quite good at doing that, thank you.  I love the subtle variations of color in the skeins, and I have discovered a way of layering the colors to give a soft effect to the pastels.  A lot of work, yes, but the effect is so lovely.

As I rinse the warm colors, the resulting threads are like liquid flame in my hand, intertwined oranges and yellows both bright and subdued . . . scarlets and aubergines to make the mouth water . . . blues that recall the Georgia coast or the little glimpses of sky through the trees here at home . . . a shade of persimmon that brings memories of finding the fruit beneath a tree on the playground of the elementary school I attended . . .  All this in a handful of wet thread!

Dyeing is hard work, I have discovered.  So many steps in the process of setting up, dyeing, storing the threads so the color develops overnight, cleaning each bottle before it is returned to the refrigerator, the drips on the table (and me!) . . . and the long rinsing process the next day before the drying begins.  After the first several hundred skeins of thread were dyed, rinsed, and dried, I began to have second thoughts about doing this on a production scale for my Etsy shop.  And when I had wound the skeins of soft silk on little plastic bobbins, I knew that dyed threads would not be mainstay of the shop.  Some threads, yes, but not en masse.

Bethy has been my helper in sorting the threads.  At nine, she has a good eye for color and enjoys walking around the large table to lay the skeins in position in the color wheel we have made of them.  She is learning the difference in touch between the various fibers and knows the silks, rayons and linens go on their own special rings.  She and I are both tactile people and do an awfully lot of squeezing the bundles.  Last weekend she was so excited by the color and the feel of the threads that she cried out, "Oh, Grandma, I could do this forever!"

Her enthusiasm was the impetus I needed to dye two large batches of threads for her to sort after school today.  She allowed Ethan to help, and assigned him his favorite blues and greens to sort.  In this last day of dyeing, I also did some experimenting with black where even though I didn't fall in love with the results, I learned.  That is life: we learn by doing.

Enjoy this photo of our color study in the garage (no; drippy dye will never make it to the studio with its white floor).  Bethy is so careful to match hue and value, while Ethan simply wants blues with blue and greens with green.  Does this sound like a typical male attitude?