What wool dyes can I use to make wool fabric iridescent?

Name: Barbara

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Message: I want to know which wash fast dyes or kiton dyes to use to dye iridescent wool fabric. I saw a recipe once and cannot find it now even with an interenet search. I would like to get the color purple on black as on a raven's wings, or the iridized green of a peacock or iridized blue also on a peacock. Can you help?

iridescent
dupioni silk

You'll have to use fabric paint, not dye. It is impossible to use dye to make any already-woven fabric iridescent, because iridescence is an optical phenomenon in which different wavelengths of light are seen when your eyes are at different angles. Dye can't do that, unless you dye shiny yarns different colors before weaving them together, as in the case of Thai iridescent dupioni silk. Fortunately, however, there are a few specialty fabric paints or pigments that can provide iridescence.

The best product for your purpose would be Pearl Ex Pigment, made by Jacquard Products, which is a fine mica powder with a very thin coating on the sides of the particles. It is available in a wide range of metallic, pearlescent, and iridescent colors. The iridescent interference colors have a different color on each side of each flat pigment particle, so that the color you see changes as you move your head. Look in particular for the Pearl Ex interference colors and duo colors; the plain metallic and pearlescent colors are lovely but not as suitable for your project. Try a small-scale test of each color you buy on both light-colored and dark-colored fabric, before completing the design phase of your project.

Pearl Ex is a pure pigment. It does not contain any binder to "glue" it to fabric. To use it with fabric, you must mix it with a clear, colorless fabric paint, such as Neopaque Colorless Flowable Extender. Paint or stamp this mixture onto your fabric thinly, allow it to dry, then heat-set the binder by ironing on the reverse side of the fabric with a home iron, as detailed in the manufacturer's instructions.

Another option is to apply a fabric glue to your fabric, then press on special fabric decoration foil, so that the shiny surface comes off onto the glue. You could apply a purple foil to black-dyed fabric, for example. The effect is astonishingly shiny. Dharma Trading Company sells the Jones Tones fabric glue and plain metallic Jones Tones foils in colors including gold, silver, bronze, red, purple, green, and blue. You can find iridescent colors of the Jones Tones foils, which would be more suitable for your project, from other sources, via an internet search. The main disadvantage of using foils as fabric treatments is that they tend to wear off rather quickly when exposed to the abrasion of the laundry, so they are ideal for projects that will not have to be washed more than once or twice.

Before applying either Pearl Ex or foils to your wool, you will want to dye it in your choice of background colors. If you examine a peacock's feather, you will see that the underlying color of the iridescent blue is actually black. Personally, my favorite black wool dye is the Lanaset Jet Black, a mixture of two black dyes which are extraordinarily permanent, compared to other wool dyes. They are so washfast that they can actually be washed in hot water, which will remove most other wool dyes. ProChem's Washfast Jet Black is my second favorite, also very washfast, and much less expensive to use. Other intense colors such as a deep turquoise blue would also make a good background.

The Kiton type dyes, which are leveling acid dyes, are ideal if you want a very smooth level color and don't care too much about washfastness. If you care a great deal about washfastness, either Lanaset dyes or metal complex (pre-metalized) dyes are the best choice for wool. ProChem and Maiwa's Washfast Acid Dyes occupy a mid-point in washfastness, varying according to color. ProChem's Washfast Jet Black is more washfast than the other colors in its dye line, as it is actually the only one of them that is a metal complex dye. Since no dye can confer the property of iridescence, you will be using these dyes only to make a good background for your iridescent pigments or foils, so you can choose purely on the basis of what color seems best to you.

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Posted: Tuesday - July 16, 2013 at 09:27 AM

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What wool dyes can I use to make wool fabric iridescent?

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