Kitchen Kromatography

Experiments have been completed. Using 1/2 oz. merino and a Wilton Cake Coloring Gels, some great things have been created.

In the picture below we have Terra Cotta at the top. Reds never seem right on a digital image, but there is some color seperation into a red and an orange. In the middle is black and the bottom a blue.

Here we have another blue, copper and a green at the bottom. Very little seperation in the copper. The green does have some, but it doesn't show well in the photo. There is some magenta in it.

The blues are my favorites. I love the purple and magenta, it makes me think of an ocean. I am not sure why, haven't seen a lot of oceans that have a magenta tinge to it. But this has me reconsidering the use of the denim/emerald roving that I have been spinning. Here's a close-up of the black and one of the blues:

The orange and reds have very little seperation, but I knew that by looking at their chromatograms. The blues seem to have the most seperation of color, which does surprise me a little since blue is a primary color. Below you can see the page of chromatograms for the greens and blues.

There is nothing special that I did to dye it this way. I just didn't saturated an area with dye, but let the dye work it's way through the fiber. I squirted dye in an area in a line with a children's medicine dropper from my local pharmacy. These are my favorite applicators and they are free! Before I steamed it in the microwave I pressed the fiber to get the dye covering more area. I didn't turn the dye over to make sure both sides were saturated. That's it.

The different colors become much more prominent when I seperate the fibers for spinning, but these will need to be transported, so I left them in the condensed state.