Dyeing for Family and Friends in Florida

This past week I had the joy of visiting family in Florida. Leading up to my visit, I wanted to bring some hand dyed gifts. After seeking input about color preferences, sizes and styles, an assortment of ready-to-dye garments were purchased from Dharma Trading Company.   

Here are a few of the Fiber Reactive Procion dyes I mixed up ranging from Deep Orange, Fuchsia, Grape, Cerulean Blue, and Mermaid's Dream (a lovely blue/green color). During the last two dye sessions, I mixed up way too much dye and had to keep cutting more fabric to use up all the excess dye. This time around, I completely forgot how much dye cotton clothing absorbs, so the first 5-6 pieces used most of my premixed dyes. So more dye was mixed up which included Chartreuse and Emerald Green to extend the color spectrum.

Here are all the various buckets and containers batching outside. Luckily, I had several meetings to distract me while the sun worked its magic. In total, there were 2 dresses, 2 tunic tops, 8 t-shirts, 4 tanktops, 2 hats, and 4 bandanas dyed.

I tried something new this time around. Usually I uncover the containers right as they are going into the washing machine to be rinsed, requiring me to squeeze out and dispose of any excess liquids. This time, I left them covered for 6-8 hours while they were batching but then uncovered them for another 2-3 hours. Thanks to solar power, most of the excess liquid was evaporated making it a much easier and neater process to load them into the washing machine for the rinsing process.

Here are a few of the garments being modeled by family, friends, and even four-legged furry friends. The colorfully dyed pieces really pop against the lush Florida gardenscape backdrop!

My brother had requested a few shirts, tanktops, and hats for himself and his coworker/friend, with his girlfriend and pup happy to join the photoshoot. 

Last but not least is a fun, family portrait with my brother, mother, and I all wearing different garments dyed with similar colorways.

I'll share more highlights from my Floridian family visit soon...