Feather pattern

[digitalcanvasimages]

I really like this pattern and want to duplicate it, but my effort didn't even come close. How does a person get the neat black lines and the perfect ovals?

[ktaltre]

The tie is a swirl - the dye seems to be applied lightly, not a saturated application.
I think the wedges of color were applied with a wedge of plain shirt inbetween.
And the black line was probably applied very lightly with a sponge brush just on the tops of the folds.
You're making me want to go try the pattern, haha.
k. taltre

[Jaja]

Could it be result from dye spreading through the fabrics, that is almost dry? Black lines never get into cream background, so it looks like they got it somehow along with grey and sand colors.
I like such dyer's puzzles. Thanks for posting.

[ktaltre]

hi Jaja,
I think you are right - the shirt was dry and the colors were applied carefully right on the tops of the folds in a line and then the dye spread out into the lighter colors - haloing. You can see the dark sand line as opposed to the black line.
k. taltre

[digitalcanvasimages]

Thank you for looking at this, and your insights. Do you think the blue was made with cobalt?

[ktaltre]

I think the blue color in the "feathers" is the black dye haloing.
MX blacks are a combination of other colors so the other colors in the black dye line bonded to the cloth first, but the blue traveled a little farther, then bonded.
Blues usually take more time to bond (turquoise for one).
It's hard to say if the blue used in that black was cobalt. You could mix your own black with cobalt and see how it halos out.
k. taltre

[Jaja]

I think it might be good to try it with some "neutral black" as a base color, adding bit of blue and bit of warm yellow to it to achieve two not-neutral blacks.
Actually cream background in that sample goes very well with two other colors.

[Animal]

I don't believe this is Procion MX in the picture.  This looks more like the poly dye that commercial dyers used to use for tie dye. 

You can get the same effect with Procion MX by using salt in your dye mixture, similar to how (the now defunct company) Cerulean Blue out of Seattle used to instruct in their tie dye instructions.  By mixing your dye powder into a paste with a little distilled water and a bit of Calsolene Oil, dissolving your urea in water then adding enough salt to make a nearly saturated salt solution for a stock solution (use rock salt or water softener salt to do this - the amount you can get into solution will depend on the temperature of the water, the amount of other compounds present in the water, and the amount of urea you are using), then diluting your dye paste with that salt solution (this is very difficult to get a homogeneous mixture due to the high ionic strength of the stock solution) you will get a solution (more like a suspension) that gives the dye molecules much more affinity for the cotton than for the solution.  When you apply this dye to your folded garment you will frequently get a crusty layer on the surface where the dye first concentrates on the cotton surface, then begins to 'pile up' as the hydrophobic nature of the dye molecule prefers to be next to dye or cotton rather than salt or water (this is the same reason that you use salt in a Procion dyebath - it forces the dye out of the water and into the cotton).  Anyway, over the reaction period, you wind up with a much higher concentration of dye on the surface than you get in the inner parts of your folded garment.  This is what gives you the 'quill' part of the feathers.  Dialing it in to get the nice oval outer feather shapes will be a function of the cotton weave, the wetness/dryness of the fabric before it was tied, and the tension of the folds and ties. 

I know about this because when I first started dyeing in the mid-80's, I was using Cerulean Blue's directions, which directed you to use salt.  It was quite the epiphany when I realized that the problems I was having with evenness of the dye application and difficulty with dissolution were due to using the excessive amount of salt that was recommended by those directions - which also causes the dyer to use much more dye than necessary (for direct application tie-dye) as much of your dye winds up on the surface of the garment and never sees cotton.  I was pretty sure that this was engineered to force the dyeing proletariat to have to buy more dye from the supplier, and when I found that other dye sellers did not recommend the use of salt in direct application tie-dye I became rather resentful that I had been wasting so much dye in this fashion... 

[digitalcanvasimages]

Wow. Perhaps I'm not ready for this. I will print this page, and save it for this winter. I will try it then. Thanks so much for everyone's input.

[ktaltre]

Here is my first attempt at the feathered swirl.
http://www.photoshop.com/users/ktaltre/assets/c0deb2ec22c34f10a147dde70b1d61e9
http://www.photoshop.com/users/ktaltre/assets/201b73f2b3f0467593603f0d8e044a94
The shirt was fairly dry, only slightly damp. I made lots of skinny fan folds.
The soda ash was in the dye and I applied it along the tops of the fan folds.
I used a couple of different blacks, mixed, and havana brown. I used ecru for the creamier color of the shirt. After I got all the colors down, I added a line of turquoise on top of each black part.
I do see some feathers. I used too much dye in parts and I didn't get the dark spine; I do see a lighter colored spine in some of the feathers.  
Next time I'll make bigger fan folds with a more controlled dye application, using watery dye to make the feather and thick dye to make the spine.
I like the idea of making feathers................
k. taltre

[Jaja]

Thanks for your research. Result is different but looks interesting as well. Was the dye thickened? I got idea to use same settings but with thickened dye and squirt some water mist on the dyed surfaces to support migration.

[ktaltre]

Hi Jaja, the dye on my first feather try was not thickened.
Have another dry shirt swirled up waiting for me to get back to it.
k. taltre

[digitalcanvasimages]

Hi Jaja, the dye on my first feather try was not thickened.
Have another dry shirt swirled up waiting for me to get back to it.
k. taltre

I am really jazzed that someone is trying this! It may not be what you had hoped for, but it's really beautiful, and I LOVE the colors you used! The coolest thing about tie dye is that it might not turned out how you planned, but the results are always interesting, and usually asthetically pleasing. Please keep posting your results!