One of my students did some stunning Torchon bookmarks with varigated thread. She used one that had a mirror image dye (ie a, b, c, d, c, b, a, b ,c etc) rather than continuous (a, b, c, d, a, b, c, d ). This factor also needs to be taken into the equation along with the length of each colour. She wound each pair with the same colour centred in the gap between bobbins, and so the colour of the whole bookmark changed in unison.
For this to work you need a design where all the pairs do a similar amount of work, ie ground, rose grounds and spiders. Although she didn't do this, I think that you could get away with cloth stich fans or trails if the workers for them were wound in a plain thread in one of the random colours. It is actually quite easy to dye your own random dye threads, and then you can control the "length" of the colour. I did quite a lot of experiments a couple of years ago when I was doing a textiles course. Any cotton threads will take ordinary household clothes dye, and if you want, for example just blue/white this is a "piece of cake". Thicker threads are (obviously) easier to manage, and cotton perle conveniently comes already in a skein, but you must untie the knot that holds it all together or the dye won't seep in to that bit. If using a spooled thread, wind it over a book or similar to make skeins. You need to follow the specific intructions for the dye you are using, but you want to opt for a "cold water" or "hand dye" type. I used old icecream tubs to lay the thread in, and the first thing is to make sure the thread is thoroughly wet. If necessary use a tiny bit of washing up liquid or shampoo to help with this then rinse in clean water. The dye I used was dissolved in warm water, so I scaled down the quantites to work out how much water for a teaspoonful of dye. Then hottest tap water and salt made a bath that the dissolved dye was added to. I altered this to putting my thread into a very smal amount of hot salty water - literally just enough to keep the thread very damp rather than sitting in a puddle. I spread the skein out around the tub (still as a loose skein) and then dribbled a little dye on across one place. As the skein is wet the dye will spread along the thread, getting paler as it goes. Allow for a little further travel and the white bit, then repeat with another dab of dye. Once you have the dye where you want it, leave it for the appropriate time. You can very cautiously poke it a bit with something like a knitting needle just to make sure the dye is through all the layers. Ignore the packet instructions to stir and agitate! Once it has had the correct dying time, rinse throroughly and dry. I think I used more salt in the final rises as it's the salt that makes it colourfast ( belt and braces mentality). It sounds complicated but was actually very straightforward and quick. If you want multicolored just put the colours spaced apart so where when they creep they blend, making a third colour. Have fun, Jacquie - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
