community of dyers

I've been working on a custom order for a customer who liked some dresses I did where the color gradually went from purple to pink, only this customer wanted brown to pink. I've had mixed luck with browns, but I finally decided to take it on and got them dyed earlier this week while the weather was good. Used Jacquard Cocoa Brown for the brown, Bubble Gum Pink with a bit of extra fuchsia at the bottom, and since the brown and pink didn't blend well (made purple, actually), used just one intermediate color with both. Most of the dresses and leggings is brown, with 1-3" of pink at the bottom, and *mostly* a pretty gradual blend despite the purple where the blue haloes into the pink - it's not as obvious when the dye is dry, so not as worrisome as I originally feared.

The final result wasn't hideous, but it's definitely in need of some touching-up before I'd let it go to a customer. Despite having all the garments saturated to dripping with the brown, there is a LOT more color variation than I expected in the brown areas. Some spots made the nice rich brown, while others are more blue-gray and even nearly-white (after over an hour in soda ash first), while in other places (most noticeably up the fold along the sleeve) the brown is nearly a black line along the folds!

In the past I've had garments where I tried touching up this way and it seemed as though the fabric had done all the reacting it could and wouldn't take any more dye, which concerns me because if I can't fix this I'll end up ordering a whole other set of blanks to try to get this done and taking a big hit on them. We're going camping this weekend and then I'll get back to it with a clear head (I hope) next week, but meanwhile, any words of wisdom would be welcome!

Thanks,
Deb