Trying to dye a grass strand material

Name: Jason

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Country or region: Arkansas

Message: I'm trying to dye a grass strand material, I believe to be organic. It is currently a tan color and I would like to dye to a darker brown color. It's currently bound into large strands and I have 10 lbs of this material. Can you help me?

Can you wash and rinse this material? Will it be damaged by being washed?

If you can wash your grass-like material, you can easily dye it with any of several types of dye. If the material will not be expected to get wet again in the future, choosing your dye carefully and making the dye very permanent is much less important than it would be for clothing that will be laundered repeatedly. The best dyes do not wash out in the laundry, but that's not a concern if you're not going to repeatedly clean your grass material with water in the future.

Any true dye that you use will have to be rinsed thoroughly after application, because there is always unattached excess dye remaining, which, after drying, will rub off on anyone or anything that touches it. If you do not want to rinse your grass fiber at all, in case the large amounts of water might damage it, then I will recommend that you use a thin fabric paint, rather than a true dye, to color your material. Paint in some cases also has the advantage of resisting fading caused by sunlight, better than many dyes.

The dye I like best to use is Procion MX dye powder. For a medium color, you can use as little as five grams of dye powder per pound of fiber, though you will want to use more in order to get a darker color. Procion MX dye is a type of dye called fiber reactive. It is set, in any plant fiber, with sodium carbonate, which you can purchase as soda ash or as washing soda. It can be applied without heat, and the results are exceptionally permanent. You don't have to use this excellent form of dye for your project, however. Other products will also work.

Basket-making materials are also often dyed with either direct dyes, or with the dye mixtures known as all-purpose dyes (which happen to contain direct dyes). Direct dyes are inferior to fiber reactive dyes on clothing, because they are less wash-resistant, but that's not a problem if you won't be washing your material. However, even direct dye needs a considerable amount of rinsing after it is applied, because of the tendency of the excess unattached dye particles to crock, or rub off, when dry.

All-purpose dye is rather expensive for what you get. A box of Rit all-purpose dye contains only enough dye for half a pound of fiber. Direct dye can cost far less, and still be just as good; for example, Dharma Trading Company sells direct dye, under the name "Industrial Dyes", for less than $7 for enough to dye a hundred pounds of material, and they do include a brown color. For a darker brown, use more dye powder than the instructions indicate, or add some black dye to your brown dye.

If you choose to use paint, instead of dye, the question is whether adding stiffness to the material would be a problem for you. If not, you can simply dilute ordinary artists' acrylic paints with water and paint them on. No rinsing will be necessary. The results will certainly be stiffer and scratchier than you'd get with a good fabric paint, but this doesn't necessarily matter for material that will not be worn as clothing.

Fabric paint is softer and smoother and has much less of a stiffening effect on the material you paint it on. You can turn artists' acrylic paints into fabric paint by adding a product called "fabric medium", if you can find it. Alternatively, you can buy a paint which is already manufactured as a fabric paint. You would want to use a very thin fabric paint, not a slick or puffy sort of paint.

Suitable brands of thin fabric paints include Dye-Na-Flow, by Jacquard Products, which is available in many hobby supply stores; Dharma Pigment Dyes, which are available only from Dharma Trading Company, which is a good mail-order source; or Pebeo SetaColor. Be careful to check the label for manufacturers' instructions concerning heat setting. Most fabric paints require ironing or baking to set the acrylic binders in the fabric paint. Heat setting is not required for materials that will never become wet, but it is important, for many fabric paints, if you want the color to survive washing.

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Posted: Wednesday - August 04, 2010 at 09:54 AM

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Trying to dye a grass strand material

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