Are you ready for Monday’s B6169 drapey dress sew-along? I certainly am! I’m excited to sew this dress with you.
Do you have your fabric ready and cut out? You might remember that fantastic celadon-colored 3-ply washed silk I purchased for this dress. It’s so luxurious, and I knew that I wanted to do something interesting with the fabric itself before I made the dress. So I used color remover to whiten the fabric, and then I cut out the pieces of my dress and serged the edges so I could dye each piece individually. (I didn’t have enough space to work with all 3 yards at once.)
I diluted black Jacquard silk dye significantly (probably a 10-15:1 ratio) and poured a little bit of the diluted dye into a rimmed baking sheet before I scrunched up each piece of fabric individually and let it sit in the baking sheet until it dried. (I actually slipped the baking sheet into the oven at a very low temperature to speed up the drying process, but an hour or two in the sun would work, too.) I did this twice with each fabric piece, one at a time, and I’m really thrilled with the result! The shades of color range from light gray to deep navy and black, with subtle bits of rich green thrown into the mix. And it doesn’t look too tie-dyed, which was what I wanted to avoid. (I wore this dress to a fancy benefit this week, so it couldn’t look too hippie. Although it was a party for artists….)
My only regret is that I serged each piece with white cotton thread, and the cotton doesn’t take silk dye, so my serged edges are a bit jarring next to the dark fabric. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do with the dye, so it was difficult to choose a color in advance. You’ll see next week. It’s not awful, but I may still do something else with my seam allowances.
In any case, I’ll be here Monday, ready to sew with you. Have a great weekend!
2 Comments:
For next time you could try a cotton covered thread. Would probably work with a fibre reactive dye. I had success with a linen dress that I dyed after completion as I had used a cotton covered thread when constructing. Not planned but a surprise I was most grateful for!
Kerrily, the thread is cotton, but the dye was for silk so it didn’t effect the cotton. It’s a great example of why it’s important to buy the correct dye for your fiber, isn’t it? (And to know the fiber content of your fabric/thread/etc.)