Dyed? Who Dyed?

Anyone remember I Love Lucy? We used to love watching that show when I was a kid. There was one series of episodes where Lucy and Ethel were driving across country for some crazy Lucy reason. She ended up hitchhiking or picked up a hitchhiker, but there was a woman who was sure Lucy was an escaped killer, and Lucy thought she was the killer. They wound up at a truck stop diner and the woman was trying to raise the suspicions of the waitress. She pointedly asked Lucy if her hair was dyed. Lucy screamed out, "Died? Who died??"

But I digress....

I did it. I cheated. This week for 52 Projects I am holding on to last week's hemp theme and decide to buy more and dye it. I want to make another plant hanger or two and use some color and decided on a two toned black and red look. Very basic, very sophisticated. I am so all that :)

So, off to the store for more hemp and some Rit dye. The instructions are written such that you need a proton microscope to read them so I went to the Rit web site and found nice, easy to read directions. What did we do before the Interwebs?

I decided to do the "sink or bucket" method since we have a nasty dirty stained slop sink the basement. Yup... just like yours. I was glad it was not the sink or swim method though my swim pace is about 1:50 per 100 yds. But, again, I digress.

First, wash the hemp in hot water. I had already cut it in the desired lengths and knotted them together in bundles.



Pre-mix the dye in really hot water


Add the premixed dye to - you guessed it; hot water



Add the material to the dye solution



Swish the material around for 10 - 30 minutes. 10 - 30? Really? That's a pretty wide margin. I went with about 15.



Oh, just before you are ready to drain the tub make sure to remember that you forgot to add some extra lengths of rope for wrapping around the ring and for making the top and bottom Alpine coil knots



Let the dye solution run out of the tub


Rinse the material in, wait, what was that? Oh yeah, hot water that gets progressively cooler until it runs clear. The progressively cooler part was not hard since "somebody" decided to run the dishwasher and take a shower at the same time, while I was working. How can an artist create under these conditions? I was so distraught I have no pictures of the rinsing process

After rinsing, wash the material in, wait for it... hot water, and then rinse with progressively cooler water.



Allow to dry. I hung it on a chair in the driveway.



Hemp is interesting stuff. The water turned a yellowish brown when I washed it and the wet hemp had a strong, musky, almost manure like smell. It also swelled a bit and curled up on itself. Once I got done all the dying and washing and rinsing I untangled it as best I could to let it hang dry. I'll keep you posted on how it progresses with drying. I did find a web site where the author posts several steps about conditioning and dyeing hemp. I may follow some of the post dyeing steps.