Safety and mixing the dyes

It is very important to use common sense and safety measures when you are mixing your dyes. I always wear a non porous mask so that I do not inhale any dry dye particles. While the dyes are not toxic they can cause allergic reactions.

You want to make sure that you are wearing gloves, I use disposable ones but certainly reusable rubber gloves are great. I didn't like them because they were too large on my hands. But recently I found some rubber gloves at JoAnn's that are smaller and fit my hand nice. They were in the gardening section.
You should designate some old clothes for your dye clothes. I have several pair of old jeans, tee shirts and a few sweat shirts, a pair of old shoes and socks. And I always wear an apron over that.

I also like to have a stack of old wash clothes handy and I keep a clean one tucked into my waist to wipe my hands on when I am working. I rewash the clothes when I rinse out the dyed fabric which I will talk about later.

 I place an old towel or newspapers on the surface I will be mixing my dyes. I spritz this with water so that it is moist. This surface then will catch any stray dye powder that may spill while you are working, and stay where it lands and can be easily cleaned up later. I use an older blender to mix the dyes and I place the blender inside a dish pan. This will catch any of the spills when I am mixing the dye in the blender.

I want to have my containers that will hold the mixed dye ready and open to put the mixed dye in once I have blended it. I usually work on top of my washing machine and a long table so that I have lots of room for all the things I am working with.

To mix the dyes I use regular mixing Tablespoons and teaspoon and regular measuring cups. I like the mixing spoons that are on a ring that way I can always find the right one when I need it.
For each of the three colors that I will mix a have a separate container to put the dye in and I like to label them so that I can see at a glance what color I will be using. While this seems a bit redundant as you can see the difference in colors, it helps me visually distinguish between them.

 To mix the dyes I add 4 cups of hot water to my blender. For each color I use 2 level TABLEspoons placed in the blender with the hot water and blended on high for about 30 seconds. Pour the blended dye into the larger container marked with the correct color. I blend three colors to do the gradation. Yellow, Red, and Blue. That is the warm color gradation. Lemon Yellow, Fuchsia and Turquoise is a separate cool color gradation. Mixing the gradation will be next...


Pink Sunrise


 Pink Sunrise is one of those gradations that just looks like you want to eat it. It reminds me of rainbow sherbet. I used these colors to make the flowers in this little "Starburst Lillies" quilt.