dyeing for a microwave

I have so much fun on my dyeing to print course run by http://www.portandlemon.com/. They are enthusiastic and generous teachers making everyone feel relaxed and able to explore.

Ready to microwave dye using procian dyes. It was so exciting to see the deep luscious colours and treat of all treats, be able to slosh them onto fabric with gay abandon! You never know excatly what you will find after microwaving but that adds to the excitement.
How to do it!
We put small amounts of procian dye into a beaker and added about 1 cm of water with urea mixture in. Then we dipped the fabric into a mix of water and soda ash for a few seconds to prepare the fabric to receive the dye.

Put into a microwaveable tub( chinese take away container) and zap for 1 minute. Open lid and release steam, then close again. Zap for a further 50 secs. Voila! Take out and rinse in plain water and hang on the line top dry.

Unfortunalty my hands became the victim of overzealous dying ready for my lampshade kit. I have done a sample stencil to try out. The lampshade should look similar to this. I'm so excited to be making my vey own printed lampshade. How cool is that!

The lower picture might be used as a double image in a lighter blue. I'm not quite sure yet. Watch this space.You can see my very own stencil heat pen here. I love buying new tools don't you?  http://www.squarehen.com/ are a fab online store and they do instruction sheets too!