Name: Felizitas

Message: Olli's dyemixer question:
If I enter, e.g., 4 for one colour and 0.5 for the next, what does that mean: 4 gms of the first, 0.5 gms of the second on 100 grams of material? or 4 parts of the first and 0.5 parts of the second?

Olli Niemitalo's wonderful Dye Mixer Applet is a great way to experiment with dye colors, but unfortunately it has not been calibrated for how much dye is required to get each color.

As I wrote in a post on on the Dye Forum a couple of years ago, the "Mix Amount" is just a general indication. How much dye do you have to use to equal "1" or "2" on the slider bars? Unfortunately, you have to determine this for yourself, by looking at your own test swatches, if you have any yet, and estimating which concentration yielded a similar brightness to "1" or whatever on the slider bar, for a given dye. More unfortunately, you have to do this individually for each different dye. So, it's a lot of trouble to use the Dye Mixer Applet to predict exact amounts of dye to use to mix a particular color. What I use it for is just to get ideas for different combinations to try.

Olli wrote about this on the DyersLIST mailing list several years ago:
He also wrote:
About the "Canvas" choices: each dye color will produce a different final color depending on the exact white of the fabric being used. I imagine that the only reason there are so many choices in the Applet is because they were easy to put in. I just use the blank white, myself. Some of the choices are rather amusing, if you scroll down that long list.

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