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Carol Soderlund’s Dyeing Workshop, 1

WOW what a five-days! Here’s a picture of the “Color Bible” that prompted my quest to take this workshop with Carol Soderlund (alas, I have lobotomized her here…Sorry Carol!)

If you have ANY interest in dyeing fabric and want to be able to achieve a specific color, start saving to take this class NOW (the picture above is what two of the color sample pages look like–click on the link to Carol’s website here and see what ProChem has to offer here–ProChem will post the 2007 schedule by late Sept. in time for Oct. 1 sign-ups). I heard about this class three years ago, maybe a year after Carol started teaching it. Between moves and illnesses and scarce funds, it has taken until now to get to it and it was worth EVERY penny. I’ll blog about it a few times, but here is the first entry.

Some of you may have heard of the “Color Bible,” also described as one of the things you grab when running out of your burning house….you end up with 1053 color samples, including recipes on how to exactly reproduce those colors on any white cellulose fiber. WOW! I took the class at Pro Chem, one of the two largest dye-houses in the US (the other being Dharma in California). Since Pro Chem is in Fall River, about 6 hours from where I live in Maine, it was easy for me to reach by car. The classroom is in the ProChem facilities, and though utilitarian (in an old mill building) has LOTS of natural light, lots of space, four sinks and washer/dryer…perfect!

We began by measuring (Carol actually did the measuring for this first part, but this is what it looks like when you do it yourself–that’s Grace on the left and Carol observing on the right). The key thing to remember is (unlike many dyebooks teach you) that it is the weight of dye-powder that dyes the weight of fiber (as in, X grams of dye will color 100 grams of fiber this color, in this depth of shade / value). Water does not dye cloth…it just distributes the dye. This is a critical distinction!

We did a seven-step gradation using three different primaries (pure dyes) in three different color “families” (a total of nine dyes, three yellows, three reds, three blues). The fifteen students were divided up into three teams of five. We had six buckets (the seventh level is the one that included zero of a given color, so a pure green would have yellow and blue, but not red…it was surprising to see that some purples actually have yellow, some greens have red in them, etc….).

Here’s a shot of my bucket on the second dye-bath (after yellow, adding fuschia)

and we stirred and stirred and stirred (to get level colors..this is called a full immersion bath).

Then we rinsed, and washed, and did the second and third rounds of dye-bath gradations (a different round for each of the three primaries). Then we sorted the samples (all of which were carefully labelled of course so we could tell what was what).

Then we ironed, stacked, and labeled. Isn’t it BEAUtiful?

Then we cut, (this is Fay from southwestern Australia and Debby from North Carolina, my wonderful tablemates)

and eventually taped our one inch squares onto the blank pages awaiting the colors of our Color Bible. (Note: Carol calls it a color book….most of her students call it “The Bible!”) Here’s a picture of Carol showing us how to cut and then sort umpteen ga-gillion strips of cloth without getting them out of order (think what would happen if you had over one thousand one inch squares in subtle color gradations on the table and a breeze blew…..or cat or child flew by…)

Carol is SO amazingly organized and orderly….I *could* (probably?) do the math and figure all this out, but it is so nice not to have to! As she said, this is a “left brain” class, so that you can later go wild with the right brain. It doesn’t involve all that much math, and what you do need to do is simplified by using metric (yes, it really is easier).

I cannot tell you how MUCH I learned in just one week…..probably about 20 years’ worth of experimenting. It will be so nice to actually end up with the color I want on the first try… now, I have my cylinders to measure, my recipes and Bible of colors, and need to order my scale (I have been converted…toss out the teaspoons and measure, it is faster and more accurate)….more soon, provided blogger (now that it has finally let me upload photos) will let me post again!

9 Responses to “Carol Soderlund’s Dyeing Workshop, 1”

  1. Beverly Says:

    I am green with envy, I’ve heard about Carol’s class from others who have been there. If she only came out west more–but we don’t get much here in Utah, and no other big city is that close. I’ll look forward to more posts about this.

  2. martha in ny Says:

    Wiw Sarah Looks awesome. hmmmmmm now I am thinking maybe next time.

  3. Karoda Says:

    I’ve seen the color book from others who’ve taken this amazing workshop and would love to take it myself some day. Did she mention publishing this workshop in book format?

  4. kathy Says:

    can’t wait to see your bible…!

  5. Kathie Says:

    Sarah,

    How wonderful! Thanks for sharing this with us. This is a “someday” wish of mine. Enjoy your new bible.

  6. Diane D. Says:

    Thanks for sharing this, Sarah. I’ve been wanting to take Carol’s class for several years, and now I want to even more!

  7. Mary McManus Says:

    I took Carol’s class in 2005 at Nancy Crow’s barn in Ohio and it was an awesome experience, both the class itself and the wonderful food and atmosphere at the Barn. Sarah expressed very well how incredibly efficient Carol is and how truly easy she made it for us.

    To answer a question asked by another commenter, Carol did address the book publication issue, but the sticking point is color reproduction. The colors just do not look the same when printed in a book.

    Yes, I would grab it if there were a fire, along with the notebook I kept there and since about various things I’ve done.

    Mary

  8. Art and Quilting in Camden » Blog Archive » Dyeing Cloth Says:

    […] Massachusetts. Long time readers may remember that I took Week 1 last year and blogged about it here (1), here (2) and here (3). The large square in the last blogpost actually ended up being the focal […]

  9. Art and Quilting in Camden » Blog Archive » Twilight Pond Says:

    […] remember that in 2006 I did my first dyeing workshop with Carol Soderlund, which I blogged about here – there are actually three posts, late August and September 2006 I had this tiny bit of fabric… […]