DYEING SOCKS. Kuba Cloth

My girlfriend Kay called and said she just took a dyeing class and had some dye left, did I want to dye socks with her. Absolutely! I mixed up some of my old (a few years) Procion dyes, (not sure how they would work), and we got started. I prewashed my cotton socks and put them wet into Zip Lock bags, added two colors of dye in each, then added 2 Tbsp. of soda ash water. Sealed and left over night.

                                             The next day I rinsed them out, what a beautiful rainbow of colors.
                                                             The old dyes worked just fine.

                                                                                                Just too much fun.

With the still left over dye my grand kids and neighbor girl made themselves tie-dye shirts. We first soaked them in soda ash water, then twisted them into a nice twirl, secured it with rubber bands. 

                       Each picked two colors to squirt on their shirts. We put them in plastic bags and left over night.

                                                                           After washing their ready to wear.

                                                     One I had to drag out of bed for a picture before I left for work.

                                                                                      How cute is he.

                                                    And our cute little neighbor girl, Bella with hers.

                           I just received a piece of Kuba cloth I ordered from Cloth Roads.
                     This cloth is made by the Kuba people who live in the Congo in Africa.
        idn't have any of this cloth in my collection and was thrilled to buy it from a reputable source.

The Kuba make their cloth from raffia. Men, women and children participate in production, but labor is strictly divided. Males collect raffia leaves, boys prepare the fibers into fine silk-like threads for weaving, and women participate in producing fiber for embroidery. Men weave the base fabric on a simple loom. Women soften the base fabric, and dye the cloth, usually using natural dyes. Red dye from Tukula wood, black from iron dross or clay.

Women hand stitch the cloth. Either applique, pieced or embroidered. My piece is appliqued, the red over the natural color base. The decorator positions appliques at her discretion or for more practical reasons, such as covering up holes in the cloth. Hence, the design of an appliqued cloth is never complete, for future tears will be covered with appliques.
I love that my cloth is old and I can see an applique patch covering a bad spot.

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Also, reverse appliqued, the black whole piece cut out and stitched with the base showing through.

                                                                      And the back of the fabric.

The information on Kuba cloth was taken from the book African Fabrics by Ronke Luke-Boone.