Name: Jasmyn

Region: California

Message: Hi. I am Jasmyn and I am doing a science fair project about dyeing fabrics natural to see which one is going to be the brightest. I need to ask 2 people questions that know what my science fair project is:

1. What fabrics should I use?

2. What colors should I use?

3. Would this be a succesful project?

And, is there anything else I should do? Thank you for reading my letter. 

First, choose your fiber (the material your fabric or yarn is made of).

Use yarn that is 100% wool, or fabric that is 100% cotton. Make sure that it is not wrinkle-resistant or stain resistant.

Or, if you want to make your project a little more complicated, you can compare wool, cotton, and polyester fabric. Which one dyes best?

Another good choice would be to compare wool yarn, which dyes well, to acrylic yarn, which does not dye well. This would make a successful project.

Second, choose your dye.

What colors you should use depend on what dye you want to use. A good natural dye that is easy to find is turmeric. It's a bright yellow. You can buy a jar of turmeric powder in the spice section of the grocery store. A lot of other foods are very bad dyes; blueberries, beets, and any sort of leaves all dye very poorly.  

You can use a mixture of food coloring and vinegar instead of a natural dye, if you like. Use any color of food coloring that you like. You can find small bottles of food coloring in the baking section of the grocery store. Food coloring works well as a dye on wool but not on cotton, acrylic, or polyester. It would be good to try dyeing both wool and acrylic yarns with food coloring. One type of yarn will dye brightly, and the other will not.

Natural dyes and food coloring both require heat to bond to the fabric or yarn, so you will need to dissolve your turmeric in water, and then either heat it in a saucepan on the stove with the fibers you're dyeing, or heat them in the microwave. If you use food coloring, add vinegar (one tablespoon per quart), but you do not need vinegar with turmeric.

If you use a microwave to heat your fibers in the dye, be sure that all of your fabric swatches or yarns and completely covered with the water the whole time so that you can be sure they will not catch on fire.

Follow this link to see the other questions I've answered about doing science fair projects using dyes:
          All About Hand Dyeing Q&A > schoolwork
Be sure to scroll down. Each title, below the top article on that page, leads to another article about dye projects for school.

If you have more questions, you can write to me again.

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