iDyePoly Again

I was determined to get Danu (Sicktress' Deesse head) onto a matching color body that wasn't peeling (the acrylic paint was just coming right off again), and my last attempts at dyeing this body on the barbeque side burner weren't too successful. So I bought a packet of iDyePoly brown:

No mess... hah.

 This time I did several things right--I did it on a nice day with the windows open, I scrubbed all the pieces clean, I got a bigger pot than the previous attempt, I put the pieces on stiff wire to keep track of them in the pot, and I put a project china bowl in the bottom of the pot to keep the pieces from direct contact with the bottom of the pot, where the fire was--and I stirred the pot for all thirty minutes the pieces were submerged, just like I was making some kind of bizzare custard, with the flames on low and the pot not quite boiling. Here is the pot:

The spoon was a loss--the iPoly packet tells you not to use things you will be cooking with later, (that is why there is a sticker on that pot's handle that says "project pot" and while Dawn did clean the pot and my hands, there was still residue in the pot--the dye has tiny, tiny pigment particles that are hard to clean up.) The bowl and the spoon came from the Goodwill; the pot is from when I was doing some fabric dyeing in New Jersey.

I wasn't able to dye all of her in one pass--her shins are just too big to fit with enough room in this 12 by 9 inch pot, maybe a big stock pot would work, but you would have to stir harder to keep that volume of liquid at an even heat. Here is what did fit:

Here is what I would do differently next time:
--I would put the smaller pieces on twine and hook them to something over the pot, because towards the end the hands fell off the copper wire and sank into the bowl.
--I would also put a plate, not a bowl in the bottom, a thick plate about 2 inches smaller than the pot so I could lift it out at the end easily.
--I would set up a second fan because even with one fan and the window open, it does smell funky.
--I would set up some kind of rack in the sink to hold the pieces up so they could drip a little while they cooled off--I had to improvise with a wire and the cascade box at the last minute:

--I would put parchment paper on the bottom of the sink and mask off the countertop. (Luckily I didn't splash.)
--I would wear gloves, the thin kind you use for food prep and painting. I was really careful and I still got dye on my finger tips from the wires, which I thought I had cleaned off but still had dye on them. I wear glasses-- but if you don't, eye protection is always good with these weird wet chemical projects.

But--it does seem to work and of course it will save you around 200.00 in resin coloring costs to do it yourself--it won't be even (I actually like the look) and it will be more fragile than having the color cast in. I did spray the pieces once they were cooled, rinsed and dried:

 And I finally have an upper torso that matches Danu's head. :D