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Blauviolett — or Procion MX RX-7
Aljo Dyes in NYC has the elusive (and expensive) Procion MX dye Blauviolett! Usually available only in Europe, this dye has a mystique built up around the color, which I had never seen. The color has been described as an unbelievable blue, not achieved through any other combination. Alas, it also has a reputation of fading hideously quickly. When I ordered it, Aljo also advised it has a much shorter shelf-life than the usual two years for procion mx dyes… it should be used in six months or less they said.
However, I got wind of the availability of this dye in the US for the first time in EONS, so I ordered a fairly small quantity (which I shared with some folks I met in Carol Soderlund’s dyeing classes) just to try. Through Paula Burch and Deb Harowitz of Scarlet Zebra, I learned that the dye might fade quickly on cotton, but that it seems to be MUCH more lightfast on silk. Hmmmm… so I not only dyed a fat quarter of cotton, but several different types of silk (I also finally broke out the citric acid crystals to use instead of the soda ash, which can have a negative effect on the hand and sheen or silk). The photo above shows cotton, silk jacquard (which appears not to be pure silk), sandwashed silk (from Dharma), and a silk chiffon, plus some silk rattail cord (also from Dharma). Here’s what they look like pinned to my design wall–
top row L to R: Sandwashed silk, mercerized cotton,
bottom row L to R: silk (and something) jacquard, silk dupioni, silk rattail cord, silk chiffon:
ALL fabrics were dyed with the same concentration of dye stock–all the silks were batched in the same container which you can see — the round tub on the bottom right! As you can see clearly, the chiffon and the silk portion of the jacquard “took” the dye very deeply, the dupioni and sandwashed silk (heavenly on the hands!) is less intense, and the cotton is lightest of all.
Now that the holidays are behind us, I am planning to cut two swatches of the cotton and the silks. One set of swatches will go inside an envelope and be tucked away inside a drawer or inside a book–thoroughly protected from exposure to any light. The other set of swatches I’ll tape to the inside of my window. Then, if I can actually manage to do this, every month (hopefully regularly, like on the first) I’ll take side-by-side photos to document fading due to light exposure.
Here’s a close-up of the cotton…sigh. Sad to think that in three months this will probably be a dingy purplish pale gray…….
If the silk remains light fast, I’ll buy up some silk and use up the rest of the dye… stay tuned!
January 6th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Thelma Smith gave me a piece of cotton sateen dyed with this gorgeous dye, and even after making a quilt with it that has been on exhibit and displayed for the last 3 months, including once in the sun, I see no fading at all. I did think I’d ruined it when I got water spots on the finished quilt and they turned a ferocious purple. Once it dried it went right back to the blue though. You can see the whole thing at http://artofquilts.blogspot.com/2007/10/staying-home-from-houston-challenge.html
January 7th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Looks wonderful. I obtained this from Deb years ago. I washing-machine dyed a comforter. It didn’t take the dye evenly and it has pretty much faded to a pinky/purple after 3-4 years. I still have about half the jar which is probably no good by now but what-the-heck, I will give it a try when I try the ice dyeing later this week (it’s too warm out now)…..
teri
BTW- how Josh??
May 29th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
[…] procion MX-RX-7 known as BlauViolett. You may (dimly, in your distant memory) recall reading this blogpost about my December dyeing adventures. Well, I didn’t want glue to be a factor in any […]