Dye tests

So today I started to test different dyes for the gold handmaiden. At the semi-local craft shop, meaning it's in the Yellow/Sunflower handdye and one Orange/Goldfish hand dye. I was pretty sure that the yellow would be too yellow and the orange too red, but I hoped that a mix of them would give me a warm gold colour.

 I made three quite large swatches of the fabric that I'm going to use for the undergown, it's a cotton voile. I also considered this quite a learning experience, so I made sure to follow the instructions. The only thing I did was to halve the amounts of dye/salt/water.

It was really simple. I heated the water to 40C, turned off the stove but kept the pot on the plate. I added salt and the dye, and then the fabric. I stirred quite a lot the first 15 minutes, and then I had the fabric in the dye for another 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Here are the three swatches. The yellow is actually darker and warmer than I thought it would be, it's not very far off the colour I'm after. The orange, to the right, I could see immediately that it was going to be red. For the middle swatch I mixed 25 grams of yellow with only 5 grams of the orange, but as you can see the orange was way too dominant.

If I was making the handmaiden flame gown, then I would be really happy with the results, but for the gold handmaiden I need to experiment more. I have ordered iDye in gold ochre, hoping that it will work without any mixing, but I've also seen people who have commented on that it's a lot more yellow than it should be. I have also ordered more of Dylon yellow and Terracotta/Brown, to see if I can find a mix that is just a bit darker than the Yellow on its own.

These dye aren't wasted though, since I will start experimenting with the pleating on them,