Often you have a specific color when your dealing with costuming, that you love but impossible to find more fabric that is the same color. I had that problem when I recently purchased a skirt from Dusty at SnakeChurch while I was at Tribal Fest 13. I loved the color....but a pain to match.
So I did find a piece of fabric I liked.....I found an Indian inspired jacket with loads of beading...one problem it was white....
seeeeeeee...so pretty!!!
So finally I put two and two together, use the jacket but dye it to my new favorite color!!!
First I cut off some fabric swatches....so I wasn't wasting precious fabric.
Then I tea dyed the first fabric swatch to make the fabric not soooooo crazy white....
English Breakfast tea.....the perfect tea blend for tea dying. Not too black.
So then the next part of the process might have been the longest....the color. I bought some fabric dye at the grocery store in green, brown, and yellow.
I just used Rit fabric dyes....the powdered kind.
And started to play with this combo and water dilution to get the exact color of green I wanted. This was alot of trial and error.....thus the reason why you need to use a sample fabric for this part. I only have so much of my precious beaded fabric!
Ok this was after I found the right color...in goes my large piece....eeeeeep.
Find a happy place find a happy place.....this part is the scariest. But I had used my test fabric first!!
So this is where I tell you.....no, I don't have a ratio of fabric dye to water.....It really took about 45 minutes playing with the colors and water ratio...and testing on small batches of fabrics....to get the right color.
I love the fact that the beading stands out against the green!
That's the color of my skirt that I'm trying to get to.....not toooo bad!
So hang to dry...the color needs to set!! But after that happens you need to do another gentle hand washing to get any extra residue off the fabric...you don't want it bleeding out. Then hang to completely dry again!
and here's the final product! So green!!
So happy how this all turned out!!
the whole costume came together for my vision which started with the color green!
That's the original Dusty skirt that started everything!!
here are some of the other components of the costume....
Quartz Belt...
the belt middle....
And the final product onstage...
photo by my friend Birgit Muehleder
ok and if your curious about the original inspiration behind this costume go here....
And if you neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed a fabulous Dusty skirt go here to her SnakeChurch shop on...
and directly purchase here...
xoxoxooxox
