I finally started playing with the mudmee type of tiedye - or at least what I think it might be, from looking at it on the internet.
Thai mudmee pieces are exuberant in their color application and their colors are more muted than regular tiedye. Much of the binding seems to be a lot of circles and fanfold trails, looking like it was tied with string or cord or something of that nature. The mudmee artists also have a certain aesthetic in the placement of the trails and circles.
As I was browsing through the forum, I came across the mention of "three step maki-agi"
(makiage is the shibori technique in which a wide variety of shapes are stitched, gathered and then bound or capped to complete the resist).
Intrigued, I googled the phrase, and found this:
http://entwinements.com/blog-mt3/2007/10/three_step_makiage.htmland then this:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/maki-age/pool/There's a couple of pieces by forum participant, Jaja, in this group of pictures.
This type of physical resist and handling of the cloth may be what Thai mudmee is based on.
Much of the mudmee I can see on the internet seems to be a process of binding, removing color from the cloth, and then adding color back. So I started with that premise.
My first try on a brown t-shirt and was tightly tied. I used straight bleach in a little squirt bottle to discharge color. I had a water bath to rinse and an antichlor bath ready to neutralize.
The shirt remained tied as I rinsed and antichlor-ed the shirt. I let the shirt dry to damp and then dyed (soda ash in the dye), batched, and washed. The ties come off before the washout.
When I removed it from the dryer, the area where it had been tied the tightest, had developed holes. The rinsing and the antichlor soak hadn't gotten under the tight binding very well, so the bleach ate holes in the cloth. I also should have used watered down bleach. Ruined a shirt – wah!
If using bleach, untying right after the bleaching, rinsing, then neutralizing, would probably be the safest for the cloth. The cloth could be tied again or the dye could be applied to the discharged areas without re-tying.
My next foray into the mudmee was discharging with thiourea dioxide. Thiox doesn't degrade fabric and it doesn't need to be neutralized like bleach, just rinsed off (directions at ProChem).
Since I was going to be heating the shirts because of the thiox bath, I tied them with string. The knots in artificial sinew relax when heated and untie themselves; the wax melts off too.
Instead of setting up a simmering thiox bath, I made the solution with hot tap water, poured it over the shirt in a bowl and microwaved (dedicated dye microwave) till hot. I had to turn the shirts over and microwave some more. The shirts stayed tied through discharging, dyeing, and batching. I used about a quart of discharge mix per shirt.
I rinsed, squeezed the water out as best I could and let the shirts dry on a rack. Then I dyed (soda ash in the dye), batched, and washed. The ties come off before washout.
The following shirts are 5% spandex in assorted colors, not black. These shirts discharged with thiox to some pretty ugly colors, dull beiges and grays. The fanfolds kept the original color inside the folds the best.
I think I approached the Thai mudmee color pallet, because when overdyeing the beiges and grays, that's what happens.
This started out as a pale brownish shirt. You can see how the colors are muted, except for the Raspberry.
http://www.photoshop.com/users/ktaltre/assets/b1a3545a415f4334a59d2a8c784466a8This was a purple shirt fanfolded up from the bottom, the sleeves were scrunched. There was a lot of original color left in the fan folds.
http://www.photoshop.com/users/ktaltre/assets/f32abbf6e655463da9b3bb7cd2a826f8This was a brown shirt, can still see a lot of brown, but it is somewhat grayed out from the thiox. The shirt tied.
http://www.photoshop.com/users/ktaltre/assets/eb73c70bff344cef837ecc0174a7f4b5The shirt - one of the petals is all dark; I may try to discharge just that section and dye it again.
http://www.photoshop.com/users/ktaltre/assets/6d4770709c0a436ba913fc3f6e3a3a40One sleeve - a fanfold, folded along the top of the sleeve.
http://www.photoshop.com/users/ktaltre/assets/b5b105bba9bd49d8a42ca59092b153a2The other sleeve - circles fanfolded from half circles, then bound, along the top of the sleeve.
http://www.photoshop.com/users/ktaltre/assets/11519c1d6f7f4e8c97179b50f15059d0I tied up that one dark petal and stuck the point in a little jar with some hot thiox bath.
http://www.photoshop.com/users/ktaltre/assets/f5254c3922bd4e309e8aeda5aa3635acI tried a light gray shirt - it lost most all the color, so ended up looking more like regular tiedye.
Tried an old black shirt out of my drawer; the thiox didn't touch it - will try with bleach next.
I think most tie dyers could develop their own version of Thai mudmee tiedyeing.
The cloth or clothing could be first dyed by the tiedyer instead of using commercially colored cloth. One could figure out which dyes discharge the best with your chosen discharge agent.
The Thais seems to use mostly black as their base color.
When discharging with thiox, you only have to tie once. In a production situation, tying once makes more sense. Also, a pot of hot thiox bath would be more productive than messing around with the microwave.
Since I've started writing this, I've made the thiox bath with almost boiling water, then poured it over the tied cloth in a bowl - works great, no microwave. I make a quart at a time.
My mudmee process probably isn't the way the Thailand tiedyers actually do it. I certainly don't know what discharging agents or types of dye or even what kind of physical resist they use.
But I think I got an approximation of the mudmee look and will continue the journey.
k. taltre
