How do I keep the white, white? In all the shirts I've done, the colors bleed and end up looking muddy or faded

Name: Valerie

—ADVERTISEMENTS—

Country or region: USA

Message: How do I keep the white, white? In all the shirts I've done, the colors bleed and the white parts end up looking muddy or faded out no matter how sparingly I use my dye. Thanks

There are three parts to the answer to this problem.

1. The first and most important is to use the right dye. If you use an all-purpose dye, such as Rit dye, some of the dye will inevitably transfer where you do not want it. Instead, you must choose a fiber reactive dye, such as Procion MX dye. Most good tie-dyeing kits include Procion MX dye. I recommend the Jacquard Products tie-dyeing kits, or kits obtained by mail-order from specialty dye suppliers such as PRO Chemical & Dye or Dharma Trading Company.

2. Once you're using the right dye, you should allow plenty of time for the dye to react with your fabric. The fabric must be a dyeable material, such as cotton, linen, or viscose rayon. You must include a high-pH chemical, such as washing soda or soda ash, to set the dye by encouraging the cellulose molecules to react with it. After applying the dye to the fabric, keep it moist and in a warm place overnight. The dyes should react well within six hours, but allowing more time ensures that all of the excess dye molecules will react, whether they react with the fiber in the fabric, or with the water that is also present. (If the dyes have all reacted before you wash out, then they won't be active and ready to react when they run onto the wrong part of your design.) The dye reaction must be kept over 70°F, because the dyes react more slowly at cooler temperatures, and they must be kept somewhat moist, either by using urea in your dye solutions (it holds onto water) or by wrapping in plastic, because dye reactions cannot take place when the dye is dry.

3. Thirdly, you must use adequately HOT water to wash out the unattached excess dye. With fiber reactive dyes, there is always some unattached excess dye. If you do not wash it out, it will rest on the wrong sections of your project, coloring the whites and making the colors look duller. The way to wash out tie-dyes properly, after the reaction time has completed, is to wash once in cool water, to remove auxiliary chemicals such as salt or soda ash, and to remove some of the excess dye. Next, wash in very hot water. You may need to turn up your water heater a bit, or you can add some boiling water from the stovetop to your washing water. The generally recommended water temperature for washing out excess dye is 140°F or above. Hotter water is even more efficient, so some dyers reduce the amount of time and water require for washing by using boiling water to soak and rinse their dyed items. In machine washing, it usually takes two washings in hot water, or sometimes three, to remove all of the excess dye.

If you combine these three tips, you will find that your dye colors are much brighter and more vivid. Your whites should stay completely white.

Another important tip: if you have hard water, be sure to use softened water to mix your dyes. The ions in hard water can make unbonded dyes difficult to wash out. You can use distilled or softened water, but the simplest choice is to buy some sodium hexametaphosphate water softener powder when you order your dyes, and add a teaspoon of that when mixing your dyes, and also to all stages in the washing-out process.

You can also consider mixing your Procion MX dyes with a dye thickener, such as sodium alginate, to keep contrasting colors from running together.

Some dye colors are inherently brighter than others, especially if you choose turquoise, fuchsia, and lemon yellow from among the unmixed single-hue dye colors of the Procion MX dyes sold by your dye supplier, so your results will be particularly bright if you use them. Using pre-mixed colors such as royal blue or true red can produce wonderful results in tie-dyeing, but the colors you mix from them will not be as bright.

(Please help support this web site. Thank you.)

Posted: Sunday - September 05, 2010 at 09:31 AM

Follow this blog on twitter here.
Tweet

getBlogName(); > getCategoryName("<$EntryCategoryFolder$>"); >

How do I keep the white, white? In all the shirts I've done, the colors bleed and end up looking muddy or faded

> >