Archives for March, 2012

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Friday, March 30, 2012

I want to dye a duvet & feather comforter,king size. I want to use the dye used for tye dying but not actually "tye" dye.

Name: Bonnie

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Country or region: WA

Message: I hope I am not asking a question that is on your website...I tried to be very thorough, but may have missed something. I want to dye a duvet & feather comforter,king size. I want to use the dye used for tye dying but not actually "tye" dye. And I plan on using one color. Can I use this dye for the large pieces and dye them in the washing machine? What would you suggest? Thanks for your time.

First, what is the outside cover of your duvet made of? If it's 100% cotton and not stain-resistant, you can dye it using the same Procion fiber reactive dyes that are in tie-dyeing kits (though you'll want to buy a larger jar of dye), but using another technique, such as low water immersion or washing machine dyeing. If it's made of polyester, though, I strongly recommend against trying to dye it, because polyester has to be boiled to be dyed, and I can't imagine its being worth the cost of a dyeing pot huge enough to hold a king-sized comforter. Cotton is much easier to dye, and can easily be dyed at room temperature if you order some Procion MX dye; the same is true of rayon and most fabrics labeled as bamboo.

However, dyeing an entire duvet/comforter is going to be a mess, even if it's made of an easily dyeable material, simply because it's so large, with all the feathers filling it. The dye will be wasted on the filling, so you'll need to use a whole lot of dye, and sometimes washing causes damage to the feathers; the soda ash required for dyeing cotton with tie-dye dyes is not at all good for feathers. What I recommend you do, instead, is find a cotton duvet cover and dye that, then use it to cover the duvet. You can find white 100% cotton duvet covers [Amazon link] on Amazon and probably many other places.

Have you been able to fit your duvet inside your washing machine? I have enough trouble getting a twin-sized comforter into an extra-large home washing machine. It tends to unbalance and make horrible noises. You can't just stuff it in tightly; the fabric has to be free to move.

Aside from the washing-out problem, and the unwieldiness of a king-sized comforter that is soaked with dye, you could pretty easily use low water immersion in a clean plastic trash can, following the instructions for "How to Do Low Water Immersion Dyeing". If you want only a single shade of a single solid color, then you will have to find a washing machine large enough for the comforter to move in freely, once the machine is full of water; then follow the instructions on "How can I dye clothing or fabric in the washing machine?". Read through and choose your recipe, then order all of the materials you need. Prewash your comforter before doing anything else. It's always important to thoroughly prewash anything you're going to dye, and, during the washing step, you'll be able to judge whether your washing machine is large enough for your comforter.

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I have a problem with clumping in my turquoise and fuschia procion dyes. Any tips to keep this from happening?

From a posting on the Facebook page All About Hand Dyeing, March 29-30, 2012:

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Joan Bentley:
I have a problem with clumping in my turquoise and fuschia procion dyes. I mix up my dye and use squirt bottles to apply. Any tips to keep this from happening?

 All About Hand Dyeing: First, make sure your dye is reasonably fresh. Sometimes dye powder goes bad and becomes clumpier, and some sources may (sometimes) sell clumpier dye powders than others. If your dye powder is defective, from a bad batch, you can usually return it for replacement, but only if you do so within thirty days of purchase, so try to remember to test your dyes when you get them.

Next, use room-temperature water to dissolve your dye, and make sure to allow plenty of time, stirring occasionally, for the dye to really dissolve. It helps if you start by pasting up the dye in just a few teaspoons of water, before adding the rest of the water you're dissolving the dye in.

Finally, filter your dissolved dye through the foot of a nylon stocking to remove any impossible clumps. A coffee filter works, too, but takes a lot longer.

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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

I plan on tub dye batiking a few cotton shirts. Once I pre-soak in the soda ash, do I want to rinse it out before dyeing? Also, do I need to wait until I have urea and Synthrapol?

Name: Sara

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Country or region: New Hampshire, US

Message: Hi! First, thank you so much for all the hard work you put into your site. It is amazing and has been super helpful - thank you! I went through your FAQs and came up with some questions I didn't see. I plan on tub dye batiking a few cotton shirts in a 4 gallon pot. Once I pre-soak in the soda ash, do I want to rinse all of that out before I immerse in die? Or do I want the residue to be on there? Also, I have the dyes and soda ash but did not yet get the urea or synthropol. Do you recommend I wait till I have those or do you think I can get started without those two things in the first couple of batches? Thank you so much! Sara

You will be able to go ahead with your project without buying urea or Synthrapol, but you will need to buy salt before dyeing.

(You're using Procion MX dye, right? None of this will make any sense if you're using all-purpose dye, but all-purpose dye is no good for batik, anyway, since it requires hot water that can melt the wax.)

Since you're tub-dyeing your batiked fabric in a large volume of water, you should not add the soda ash fixative beforehand as a pre-soak. Pre-soaking in soda ash is done when you're going to be applying the dye directly to soda-soaked fabric, as in tie-dyeing or dye-painting. For immersion-dyeing, you will add soda ash as a fixative only after you have added the dye.

As a separate matter, you can boost the action of the detergent that you use to prewash your shirts by adding some soda ash, but that soda ash gets rinsed out and does not count as a fixative. At that stage, it's only a cleaner. It has nothing to do with the soda ash that you will add to fix the dye. Be sure to prewash your shirts in hot water before you start your project, using detergent and extra soda ash, and rinse as usual. Always dry your fabric completely before applying wax. A little dampness will resist the wax.

Dyeing in a large volume of water, as in your four-gallon pot, is done when you want a single solid color, exactly the same across the entire piece. It is more trouble than other methods of dyeing, because an hour's worth of stirring is required, but it's the only way to get a perfectly solid color. (I usually prefer to use the low water immersion method when batiking, producing a somewhat variegated color; low water immersion is much less work, and looks more interesting. See "How to Do Low Water Immersion Dyeing".)

To do high-water-ratio immersion dyeing, as you are planning to do, you need fiber reactive dye, such as Procion MX dye; a large quantity of salt; and the fabric you're going to dye. You do not need to use urea for immersion-dyeing, because the dyeing is completed after an hour of stirring the fabric with the dye and salt; urea is used to maintain moisture in tie-dyed clothing overnight, so the reaction can continue longer, but there's no need for it in immersion dyeing, since there is plenty of water present. Some people like to use urea when they dissolve their dye, on the theory that the dye will become slightly more soluble, but it's not necessary. See my FAQ page, "What is urea for? Is it necessary?".

You don't have to use Synthrapol, although it is a very good detergent; any laundry detergent will do for the washing-out step after you're done dyeing, as long as you use hot enough water. (See my FAQ page, "What is Synthrapol?".) When you go to boil out your batik wax, a drop of liquid castile soap (such as Dr. Bronner's) or some Ivory soap would be a better choice, though a drop of hand dishwashing soap will do.

When you use a large amount of water, though, you really must use salt, a lot of salt. Salt is not needed for tie-dyeing, dye-painting, or low-water-volume immersion dyeing, but it is needed to make up for the large amount of water in your four-gallon pot. The problem is that, when you dilute the dye a lot, most of it has trouble even finding the fiber it's supposed to be bonding to. You end up wasting most of your dye. Adding salt takes care of this problem. You can go buy your salt at the grocery store (you're unlikely to have enough on hand already unless you bought it for dyeing). It doesn't really matter whether you use non-iodized salt, it turns out. I like to use pickling salt, which is, as it happens, non-iodized, and free of additives, and comes in relatively inexpensive four-pound boxes at the grocery store. If you measure your salt by weight, rather than volume, it doesn't matter whether you use kosher salt; if you measure by the cupful, you will have to use a larger quantity, since kosher salt has a lower density than granulated salt. For dyeing one pound of cotton in three gallons of water (in your four-gallon pot), you will need three cups of granulated salt, or four cups of Morton brand kosher salt, or six cups of Diamond Crystal brand kosher salt. See "Do I need to use salt, in dyeing?".

If your water is hard, you'll get better results if you add the water softener known as sodium hexametaphosphate, but that's hard to find locally. You can do without it this time, and buy some with your next dye order.

Here are instructions for tub dyeing (high-water-ratio immersion dyeing) one pound of fabric in three gallons of water:

1. First dissolve your dye in room-temperature water (wear a dust mask while working with dye powder). Start by "pasting up" with a very small amount of water; when you have mixed the dye powder into a smooth paste, add more water, for a total of about two cups of water, and stir until the dye is completely dissolved. Filter out any tiny lumps by pouring it through the toe of a nylon stocking, which you can hold in a funnel.

2. Dissolve one-third of a cup of soda ash in two cups of mildly warm water (it dissolves best in water around body temperature, not in hot water or cold water).

2. Fill your bucket or pot with two gallons plus three quarts of warm water, about 100°F (or about 40°C). There must be plenty of room in your bucket at the top, to avoid splashing. The usual container to choose is a five-gallon plastic bucket, since no stovetop heating will be required.

3. Dissolve your salt in the water in your bucket or pot, stirring as long as necessary, using a long-handled spoon or stick. Use three cups of granulated salt, or four cups of Morton brand kosher salt, or six cups of Diamond Crystal brand kosher salt.

4. When the salt is dissolved, add your dye to the salt water and stir.

5. Add your fabric to the bucket, and stir for fifteen to twenty minutes. In this stage, the dye is soaking into the fabric, but it has not yet bonded to the fabric since there is no soda ash.

6. Add about one-third of your soda ash and continue to stir for five minutes.

7. Add another third of your soda ash and stir for five more minutes.

8. Add the last of your soda ash to the dyebath.

9. Continue to stir for an hour. (You can cut this down to stirring for only half an hour if you are not concerned with getting as intense a color.)

10. Dump out the dye and drain your shirts, then wash them in cool water.

11. Repeat your waxing after allowing the fabric to dry thoroughly, or, if you are done, you can proceed to remove the wax.

If you use low water immersion dyeing, instead, using a much smaller container, you will be able to skip all of that tiresome stirring. This is a good idea only if you think that some variation in color will work well with the design you are batiking, of course. You need to use a lot of water, and a lot of stirring, if you want completely even solid colors.

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Sunday, March 25, 2012

I have trouble removing scent from fabric softener and or sizing in new items

Name: Grace

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Country or region: Nevada

Message: I have trouble removing scent from fabric softener and or sizing in new items. Seems like you know everything about fabric I used to dye but am now too chemically sensitive and am just looking to get rid of odors rather than adding color.

From what I have read it sounds like Synthrapol would work do you know anything else that might work better or faster. I have to wash new things about 10 times before I can use them. Sometimes the fragrance never comes out esp of synthetics.

Synthrapol is just a detergent, one that is free of optical brighteners and perfumes. It's good, but probably not significantly better for your purposes than whatever unscented detergent you're already using.

There are a great many different chemicals used in finishing clothing, such as formaldehyde resins. These additives can be used, without any legal requirement for any indication on the label, to reduce the tendency of the fabric to wrinkle or to stain, or to reduce the tendency of lower-quality direct dyes to quickly fade, or to reduce pilling of knitted fabrics. Synthetic fiber fabrics may in fact be less likely than natural fibers to have such treatments applied to them, but the dyes used for polyester or acrylic tend to be less tightly bound to the fabric than the best cotton dyes, making them more likely to cause allergies in susceptible wearers.

I'd recommend that you soak your clothing in the hottest water it can tolerate, wash it in the hottest water it can tolerate, and possibly use three-quarters of a cup of vinegar in the liquid fabric softener dispenser on your washing machine (use less in a front loader), as a substitute for fabric softener. Be careful about color sorting, since most dye is more likely to run in hot water than in cool water. Hot water is better at removing almost anything than cool water is, but you may still have to wash multiple times, and not all fabric finishes are possible to remove at all. If necessary, to help remove fragrances, I'd also recommend you hang the clothing outside for a week or more to air it out.

If it really bothers you, consider buying clothing that is sold without any fabric finishes. If you buy PFD clothing (which stands for Prepared For Dyeing), it will be free of fragrances and other fabric finishes. The best online retail source for a wide variety of PFD clothing is Dharma Trading Company. Of course, all PFD clothing is always the same color, white, though Dharma does sell a few black items that would probably be okay. You may want to dye your cotton PFD clothing yourself, using Procion MX dye, soda ash, and salt in the washing machine. (See "How can I dye clothing or fabric in the washing machine?".) It is not difficult to do, and Procion MX dye bonds permanently to the cotton fiber, making it suitable for people with chemical sensitivities. After dyeing with Procion MX dye, wash it out once in cool water and then twice in very hot water; this will remove any excess unattached dye, leaving it safe for even very sensitive people to wear.

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Friday, March 23, 2012

How can I set inkjet ink that I've already painted onto cotton?

Name: Bonnie

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Delta Ceramcoat Clear Textile Medium 8 oz

Country or region: Australia

Message: Hello Paula,

Thanks for your wonderfully comprehensive website. It has gotten me out of a dying pickle or two. I have a specific question that I have not been able to find a solution to anywhere on the internet:

I hand painted a stretch cotton top with some inkjet ink several years ago, on a whim. The fabric was not prepared in any special manner. I have not washed out the ink, it is just dried on there. Sometimes I wear it and get covered in ink. It's sooo funny and toxic, but i do love the colours and design.

Do you know of any way of setting the ink to any degree?

I have been wondering if it would work to saturate the shirt with a vinegar solution and heat in a sealed zip-lock bag in the microwave for several minutes. What do you reckon?

Don't try the vinegar/microwave method! It won't work. Vinegar will not set the inkjet pigment on cotton; in fact, vinegar won't set anything on cotton. It works to set acid dyes on silk or wool, but not inkjet ink, and not cotton.

(Next time you paint a shirt, try to use a good cotton dye, such as Procion MX dye, or else use fabric paint. If you use the right materials, they will easily last a long time!)

I don't think there's any way to set these colors as dye. Depending on the printer, inkjet ink is composed of either disperse dye, which can be heat-transferred to polyester, or insoluble pigments, which can't be used as dye on any fiber.

What you can do instead is use a clear, colorless fabric paint to seal the color in. Like any fabric paint, the colorless variety will slightly alter the hand of your fabric, but there are some that do so only to a minor extent. Don't use a regular artist's medium, such as is used to make paints for use on paper or perhaps on walls; you must use a special fabric medium, which is made to be less stiff and less scratchy. The acrylic paint base you buy should be labeled specifically for use on fabric, or have the word "textile" in its name.

There are different brands of colorless fabric paint extenders. They are often sold for mixing with fabric paints to dilute them, as diluting with too much water will result in there being too little glue present to help the pigment to stick. Fabric paint extender is the same colorless acrylic base to which pigments are added in order to make fabric paint.

You will need to do a test with any fabric paint extender you obtain, to make sure that it works as you hope it will. You'll want to test whether that it is sufficiently transparent, and that it doesn't feel bad on the fabric. Paint some on to a cloth rag that is similar to your inkjet-painted cotton top. Check the manufacturers' instructions to find out how much water you can add safely (for fabric paints made by Jacquard Products, you can add only up to 25% water), and to make sure whether you need to heat-set the product after it dries.

Some brands of colorless fabric paint medium or extender include Jacquard Neopaque Flowable Extender (sold online in Australia by Batik Oetoro, in New South Wales), Setasilk 30 Diluant (sold online by Silksational in New South Wales), Jo Sonja's Textile Medium (sold online by The Thread Studio), and Uniprint Extender or Hand Painting Medium (sold online by Kraftkolour in Victoria).

In her 2008 book Quilts of a Different Color, published by the American Quilter's Society in Kentucky, Irena Bluhm gives a recipe for a mixture of colorless fabric mediums that she uses to seal pigment she has drawn with ordinary colored pencils onto fabric, in making quilts. Her favorite formula is to mix 70% Jo Sonja's Textile Medium, 20% Delta Ceramcoat Textile Medium, and 10% Versatex Fixer. The different textile mediums have different textures, and it is a matter of taste, which you prefer. Delta Ceramcoat is very thick, while Jo Sonja's Textile Medium is thinner. These two textile mediums require heat setting, but the Versatex Fixer allows the use of this mixture with no heat setting at all. You might not be able to locate all of these specific brands in Australia, but I am sure that you will be able to locate equivalent products that will work with a little experimentation.

Depending on the amount of inkjet ink that is in the fabric of your cotton top, you might need to paint fabric medium on both sides of the fabric.

After you have thoroughly covered the inkjet ink in your cotton top with some sort of fabric medium or fabric paint extender, allow it to air dry, then, if necessary, heat-set the acrylic medium to make it permanent. A home clothes dryer will probably not get hot enough for this, but a commercial dryer in a laundromat will work, or you can press the fabric with a hot dry iron to set the acrylic binder. Your top will probably feel a little heavier, less stretchy, and a little stiffer, but you should be able to wear it without transferring the inkjet ink to your skin or to anything else you touch, and you will be able to launder the shirt, as well.

A completely different alternative is given on my page about flower pounding, "How can I set the dye from pounding flowers onto cloth?". What you can do is scan the designs you've painted onto your cotton top, using a scanner attached to your computer. Edit the images if necessary using a photo manipulation program, such as Photoshop Elements, then print them out on to inkjet transfer paper, also known as t-shiort transfer paper. You can then transfer the designs to a new piece of fabric with a hot dry iron. This is a good way to preserve paintings that are otherwise too ephemeral to wear.

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Thursday, March 22, 2012

How to bleach PFD fabric white

Name: Christopher

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Country or region: USA

Message: I cannot seem to find anywhere how to make Prepared For Garment Dye fabric white. i believe it is some combination of peroxide and bleach; but I have no idea how much of each and how long it should soak, and if I should use a special type of chemical. BTW- I purchased Bleach Stop thinking it would help. Thank you for any info you can provide me!

I have never seen a recipe combining peroxide and chlorine bleach, but both are used, separately, for this purpose. As a general rule it is dangerous to combine other chemicals with chlorine bleach, since ammonia-containing mixtures will produce chloramine gas, while acid-containing mixtures will produce chlorine gas, with potentially fatal results in either case. However, peroxide is not dangerous to mix with chlorine bleach. I still don't recommend bleaching fabric by mixing chlorine bleach with peroxide, though, unless you can find a reliable recipe specifying the details of how to do so.

It doesn't make sense to me to combine hydrogen peroxide and chlorine in a single treatment, because peroxide will react with hypochlorite to neutralize it. In fact, hydrogen peroxide, like Bleach Stop or Anti-Chlor, will neutralize hypochlorite by reacting with it to form less reactive chemicals. It will stop the bleaching action altogether, if you use enough of it. Hydrogen peroxide reacts with sodium hypochlorite to form sodium and chloride ions, water, and oxygen. See my page, "How can I neutralize the damaging effects of chlorine bleach?". I believe that bleach alone will be more effective than bleach combined with peroxide. However, following a bleach treatment with a peroxide treatment could make a lot of sense.

Although peroxide is much weaker at removing color than hypochlorite is, peroxide is popular in the textile industry for whitening the natural color of clothing fibers, because the environmental effects of disposal are less than for chlorine bleach, thus reducing costs in spite of the greater expense of peroxide as compared to that of chlorine. Peroxide can also be used on wool, something you should never do with chlorine bleach. PRO Chemical & Dye provides a mild recipe for bleaching white wool with hydrogen peroxide. Cotton should be able to tolerate harsher conditions than wool, especially high pHs, but I'm afraid I do not have a stronger recipe for peroxide-bleaching cotton.

"Color safe" oxygen bleaches are based on percarbonate or perborate, which are produced by reacting hydrogen peroxide with borates or carbonates; when cleaners such as Oxy-Boost or OxiClean are added to water, they generate hydrogen peroxide again, almost always without any effect on the color of the fabric. Much higher concentrations of peroxide are needed to bleach out the natural color. You won't be able to use the safe low concentrations of hydrogen peroxide available from a drug store; instead, you would need high concentrations of peroxide, 35% or more, which can be quite hazardous to work with if you don't have appropriate safety equipment.

Using chlorine bleach, which is based on hypochlorite, is recommended only for 100% natural plant fibers, such as cotton, linen, or hemp. Never use it on silk, wool, or synthetic fibers, such as nylon or spandex blends, which it will eat holes in. Even cotton can be damaged by using chlorine bleach that is too concentrated, or leaving it on for too long, or using it at too high a temperature, or failing to neutralize the bleach afterwards.

It would probably be best to bleach your fabric in a washing machine. This will expose you to the dangerous fumes much less than hand-bleaching of any sort (open a window in the laundry room if possible). If you work directly with chlorine bleach, I strongly advise you to buy a proper respirator, not a dust mask, with an acid gas cartridge, even if you're not mixing the bleach with anything else. Chlorine bleach is quite toxic and at high levels can do you harm, if you do not take precautions.

Don't pour the undiluted bleach directly onto the fabric. I'm not sure what quantity is best for this purpose; most of the instructions I've seen for whitening clothes call for using one or two cups of bleach, diluted with a quart of water before adding it, per load of clothing, waiting for the machine to fill with water before you add the bleach, and mixing the bleach with the water in the machine before adding the garments. These recommendations are not specifically for bleaching the natural color of cotton to a pure white, however, and may not be sufficient for your purposes.

Industrial hypochlorite bleaching of textiles makes use of between one and three grams per liter of available chlorine, according to A. K. Roy Choudery's book "Textile Preparation and Dyeing"; it appears that ordinary 5.25% sodium hypochlorite is referred to as if it contains 5.25% available chorine, in spite of the fact that it contains hypochlorite rather than chlorine, so one gram per liter would work out to 20% dilution (one part bleach to four parts water). That's quite a strong concentration of bleach!

Discharging color from dyed clothes may take as much as 25% bleach, diluted in water, but that process, when practiced by hand dyers, involves very small quantities of bleach, which makes it safer to work with. To achieve that concentration in a twenty-gallon washing machine load would require as much as five gallons of bleach, which does not seem to be a good idea. Commercial bleaching of fabric is done in stone or concrete containers; I suspect that the metal of a washing machine might be damaged by exposure to high concentrations of bleach.

I guess what I advise is that you try adding a few cups of household bleach to a washing machine with hot water, and then adding your clothes to it to see what happens after agitating gently for some time.

Your cotton should be clean before you try to bleach it, because hypochlorite will react with gray cotton to produce yellowing, according to John Shore's book, "Cellulosics Dyeing". Scouring the impurities from fabric that is obviously contaminated with plant material requires boiling it with soda ash or lye. Your garments have probably already been scoured before you received them.

Do not expect to obtain a perfectly bright white, no matter how much bleach you use. After successful bleaching, cotton fabric is lighter than its natural color, but it is still not perfectly white. In order to obtain the brightest whites, after all dyeing has been completed, you can using an optical brightener, which improves the whiteness by converting invisible ultraviolet light to a blueish light. Optical brighteners are more effective than blueing, which was the old traditional solution for slightly yellow cottons, because the additional light they make visible gives a "whiter than white" appearance. Dharma Trading Company sells an Optical Brightener which is ideal for this purpose, but many laundry detergents contain smaller amounts of a similar product.

After you have finished using chlorine bleach, it is wise to neutralize any remaining hypochlorite in the fabric. This is what the Bleach Stop (sodium thiosulfate) you bought is good for. You should wash out the bleach with water first, then soak your fabric for about fifteen minutes in a mixture of Bleach Stop and water. It is important to use enough Bleach Stop: you should use one ounce, or thirty grams, per gallon of water. Once you have used up your current supply of Bleach Stop, you might prefer in the future to buy Anti-Chlor (sodium metabisulfite), because less is required, so it's more economical; you need less than half a teaspoon of Anti-chlor per gallon, so it's more practical to use in a washing machine, which typically holds twenty gallons. PRO Chemical & Dye is one of the sources that sell Anti-Chlor.

For more information, see my pages, "How can I neutralize the damaging effects of chlorine bleach?" and "What chemicals can be used to remove dye?".

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Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Pulling my hair out trying to figure out the best way to achieve a super rich blue

Name: Kyle

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Country or region: United States

Message: Hi Paula. I've read through all your material and examples (extremely helpful btw:) before asking you this question, but I am still pulling my hair out trying to figure out the best way to achieve a super rich blue as shown on your Intense Blue Liquid Dyed Rayon shirt. I've been using procion powder dye, but none of the results are as rich. Is liquid Intense Blue what I should try using instead ? I am dying 100% cotton corduroy hoping to achieve results similar to the [picture shown at the left]. Thanks so much for your help. -Kyle

Procion MX dyes can produce colors that are as rich and deep as those from the Remazol-type Liquid Reactive Dyes in the example you're looking at on my site. I like both of these types of dyes. There are other factors that you should work on for getting the maximum richness.

Unfortunately, my first suggestion is helpful only when you haven't already chosen your fabric: get either rayon or mercerized cotton to dye. Unmercerized cotton, that is, most cotton that you can find, has tiny fuzzy tendrils on the surface of each fiber that diffuse light and make the color appear to be lighter. Mercerized cotton has been treated with lye, while being stretched, to remove this fuzziness so that dye colors appear to be more intense. Rayon is chemically reprocessed cellulose; its treatment has a similar effect to mercerization, so rayon dyes very much like mercerized cotton, yielding brighter colors than most cottons. Bamboo fabric is usually rayon, so it usually dyes very well, too. I don't think I've seen mercerized or rayon corduroy, unfortunately. Cotton velveteen might produce a richer color than cotton corduroy will, depending on the individual fabric.

There are other things you can try, too. Something that really helps is to dye your fabric or clothing multiple times. Go ahead and dye as usual, wash out and dry, then repeat the same dyeing process, with the same color(s). Minor shifts in the orientation of the fibers within the yarns in the fabric cause new dye sites to open up, making it possible to add more dye.

Even in the first round of dyeing, there are ways to improve your color intensity. Avoid permanent-press or wrinkle-resistant clothing, because the invisible finishes on the fabric can prevent the dye from fully accessing the fabric. Prewash in the hottest water your garment can tolerate, ideally 140°F, using Synthrapol or another detergent, plus soda ash for extra cleaning power (this is completely separate from the soda ash you use to fix the dye); this will help to remove any other finishes that can be removed.

Try to get everything else perfect: use the right amount of soda ash as instructed by a reliable recipe, make sure your dye reaction is allowed to occur in a warm place, and, if your dye method lends itself to this, leave the dye on the fabric overnight. (Don't leave the dye on overnight if you're immersion dyeing for a perfectly smooth solid color, because it's not worth stirring it that long, and you must stir throughout the dyeing process for a perfect solid color. Most of the dye color bonds in the first hour, anyway, depending on how warm the room and your water are.) If your house is a little cool, find a way to warm your dye reaction temperature to at least 70°F, but preferably higher: scroll down to "Ways to increase your reaction temperature" on my page "What is the effect of temperature on fiber reactive dyes?".

Use plenty of dye. Your dyed fabric should look too dark before you wash out the excess dye. See my page, "How much Procion MX dye should I use?". You can use up to 10% OWG on cotton fabric: for a one-pound pair of corduroys (weigh them while they are dry), that would be an astonishing 45 grams of dye powder. There will be some wasted dye that goes down the drain, but that's inevitable.

Be sure you're not using more water than you need, following a reliable recipe. For a perfectly smooth solid color, using high water ratio immersion dyeing in a large bucket or the washing machine, you will want twenty or twenty-five times as much water as fabric, by weight, but for low water immersion dyeing you should dissolve the dye in barely enough water to cover the fabric. If you're using a high volume of water, you will need to use a large quantity of salt in order to help drive the dye from solution onto the fabric, but this is not an issue for low water immersion dyeing, with only small amounts of water.

Color choice is also very important. You will get a brighter color using Procion Blue MX-G (cerulean blue) than you will with Procion Blue MX-R (sky blue or basic blue), because the latter color does not absorb as narrow a band of the visible spectrum; it's really more of a navy blue. There is no Procion MX blue dye that is exactly the same bright medium blue color as the Remazol Intense Blue, known generically as Colour Index Reactive Blue 19; all of the Procion blues are either slightly more greenish in hue, or darker, duller blues, though you can buy a good bright blue mixture from an online dye retailer. If the color must be a medium blue hue, instead of slightly shifted to green as the cerulean blue is, you can adjust it yourself by adding a little Procion Red MX-8B (fuchsia), or buy a bright blue mixture with an encouraging name like ProChem's "brightest blue" or Dharma's "electric blue". Cerulean blue (blue MX-G), turquoise (turquoise MX-G), and fuchsia (red MX-8B) are three of the clearest and brightest of the pure unmixed colors in the Procion MX line of dyes.

It's essential to start with the brightest white fabric you can, before dyeing. A "natural" cotton color fabric, which is slightly yellowish, will never produce as bright and clear a blue as a bleached white cotton that is very colorless to start with.

One last possibility to consider is that sometimes the color in a photo you want to copy may have been manipulated on a computer by increasing the color saturation in the photo. Sometimes this kind of manipulation is necessary in order to make a photo give as close an effect as possible to what you see when an item is in very bright sunlight; other times, its use may exaggerate the color. Just something to consider when looking at the intensity of color in a photograph. A color will look brighter when viewed in sunlight than it will in most indoor light.

Summing up: to get the most brilliant blue possible, use mercerized cotton or rayon, use a lot of dye, use a warm room, choose a very clear bright dye color, and dye your fabric more than once. When one of these is not an option, try to do everything else you can, in order to get the brightest color possible.

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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Dyeing with Oregon Grapes (Mahonia Aquifolium)

Name: Joyce

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Message: I'm a freelance writer working on an assignment on Oregon Grapes (Mahonia Aquifolium). Numerous sources say the inner bark and roots of this plant have been used for a yellow dye and the berries for a blue dye. I'm trying to find someone who has actually worked with Oregon Grape-derived dyes and can tell me his/her experiences. Thank you.

I don't know anyone who works with Oregon Grape, but I can give you more information on the chemistry of the dyestuffs contained in it, and a couple of recipes for dyeing with it.

Blue and purple berries generally make poor dyes. Their natural anthocyanin pigments, the source of the blue color, do not maintain their color at all well after laundering. For a natural purple dye, you can get far longer-lasting color by using logwood; for a natural blue, nothing else approaches indigo. In my opinion, berries and grapes of any sort are suitable as a blue or purple dye only for projects that will never have to be washed. (A relevant posting in my blog about an anthocyanin-based plant dye is "How can I dye with foods such as blueberries?".)

The yellow from the roots and inner bark is a better dye than the purple from the grapes, however, since it lasts longer. Yellow dyes are extremely common in nature. The majority of dyeplants produce yellow dyes, many of them unfortunately susceptible to light fading. One of the most light-resistant of natural yellow dyes is quercitron, which comes from the inner bark of black oak trees.

It's important to note that large quantities of any natural dyestuff must be used to obtain a good color. Non-dyers are often surprised to learn that, rather than a small handful, you must often use two to three times the weight of dye plant, as compared to the weight of the fiber to be dyed. Large quantities of the dye plant must be harvested to color even small quantities of fiber.

John & Margaret Cannon's book, Dye Plants and Dyeing, published by Timber Press in 1994 and 2002, contains a paragraph on Oregon Grape in their entry on mahonias, on page 78 in the 2002 edition:

"Mahonia aquifolium, the Oregon Grape, is a native of western North America. It is naturalized in some places in Europe and is widely cultivated in parks and gardens. These shrubs have leaves with 5 to 9 leaflets which resemble holly, small yellow flowers and blue-black berries. The bright orange roots and the stems produce fairly permanent golden-yellow and brownish-reds. The dyes present are the alkaloids berberine, beramine, and oxyacanthine. The berries are best in an acid solution, when they produce violet-blues. The pigments present are anthocyanins. The Navaho Indians of the southwest United States use Oregon grape for dyeing, but their use of vegetable dyes, with the possible exception of indigo and goldenrod, was introduced as late as the 1920s and is not of historical importance."

It's interesting to know that berberine is one of the dye chemicals in Oregon Grape. Berberine is found in a number of different plants, including goldenseal and barberry, and has been used for various medicinal purposes. There are many references to it in the medical literature: see PubMed. There also seems to be useful information in the Wikipedia entry on berberine.

There are two recipes available for dyeing with Oregon Grape in the 1935 booklet, "Home Dyeing with Natural Dyes", by Margaret S. Furry and Bess M. Viemont:

"The coloring matter contained in Hollygrape root is berberine, the same as that present in the bark and root of barberry. It is one of the few natural basic dyestuffs. Hollygrape, or Oregon grape as it is sometimes called, grows in the Northwestern States. On wool, hollygrape root gives a buff and a light tan which have fair color fastness. On cotton its colors are not fast.

Buff.—For each pound of wool mordanted with alum, allow:
1 peck chopped hollygrape root. [one peck equals two gallons]
Mordant the wool with alum (p. 6). Soak the chopped root over- night in water to cover. In the morning boil for 2 hours, strain, and add enough water to make 4 to 4% gallons for the dye bath. Immerse the yarn or cloth thoroughly rinsed and squeezed out of water and boil for 30 minutes. Rinse and dry.

Tan.—For each pound of wool mordanted with alum, allow:
1 peck chopped hollygrape root.
1/6 ounce potassium dichromate.
1/6 ounce acetic acid, or 6 to 7 tablespoons vinegar.
Mordant the wool with alum (p. 6) and dye as directed above. Without rinsing put into a boiling bath of the potassium dichromate and acetic acid, stir carefully, and boil 10 minutes longer. Rinse and dry."

I strongly recommend against following any recipe, such as the above recipe for tan, that calls for potassium dichromate. Potassium dichromate is based on the known human carcinogen trivalent chromium. Trivalent chromium does not belong in the home or art studio. There have been many deaths and serious illnesses caused by careless use of potassium dichromate, and there are plenty of natural dyes which can be used much more safely, if due care is taken, that do not call for the use of this dangerous substance.

Buff is such an easily obtained color, using other dyestuffs, that I see little reason to bother with using Oregon grape as a dye. Its historical use would be more interesting, except that it appears that the plant was not used historically as a dye by the Navaho Indians; only if it were to turn out that another group of people did use the dye historically would that issue become interesting.

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Monday, March 19, 2012

How to make dye last longer in martial arts uniforms

Name: James

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Message: I am a martial artist (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) and a common problem that BJJ practitioners run into is that the dye/color in our kimonos (uniform) tend to fade (some faster than others). There are all sorts of wives tales about how to set the color so it will stay longer, but I haven't found any of those methods to be super effective. The problem is that I train at least 4-5 times a week and wash/dry my kimonos frequently (twice a week if not more). I have several kimonos so I rotate which ones I use on a regular basis, but they all end up fading.

The kimonos are 100% cotton and most are pre-shrunk (not sure if that matters). I want to find a way to set the color and make it last longer than it already does.

I really appreciate the help and look forward to hearing back from you.

The very most effective way to get non-fading uniforms would be to buy dyeable 100% cotton white kimonos, and dye them yourself using a fiber reactive dye such as Procion MX dye. (See my page, "About Fiber Reactive Dyes".) The molecules of this type of dye form a strong, permanent covalent bond to the cotton fiber, so they cannot be stripped off by hot water. Their color will, in fact, survive even boiling water without a problem. I've seen Procion-dyed garments stay bright through more than a hundred launderings; they will last the longest in water supplies that do not contain chloramine, commonly used as a disinfectant, which is something that is out of your control. Most likely you already know that you should also avoid the use of chlorine-based bleach, which will break parts off of most dye molecules, destroying their color.

The dyes your current uniforms have been dyed with are either inferior dyes that fade quickly, such as direct dyes (see "About Direct Dyes"), or they are dyes that have been applied incorrectly, so they don't attach as well as they otherwise might. Direct dyes are the most likely answer, because they are a very inexpensive sort of dye, especially for industrial use.

It is possible to improve the washfastness of direct dyes significantly. The old claims that soaking with vinegar or with salt will "set" the dye and prolong its life are false, but there is a type of commercial dye fixative that actually does work. This class of product is known as a cationic dye fixative; there are many brands, such as Retayne. (See my page, "Commercial Dye Fixatives".) You might be able to find Retayne at a local quilter's supply store, or possibly from some local fabric stores, but chances are that you'll need to buy it by mail-order. A couple of the many good sources are PRO Chemical & Dye in the eastern US, and Dharma Trading Company in the west; order from a company that is closer to you, for greater speed and economy in shipping, or order from whichever has other supplies that you need. Both of the companies I mention are also excellent sources for Procion MX dyes, at extremely reasonable prices. (For contact info for these and other dye retailers, see "Sources for Dyeing Supplies Around the World".)

Cationic dye fixatives such as Retayne are not quite as effective as using a superior fiber reactive dye from the start. Retayne-treated fabrics will stay bright without fading many times as long as untreated direct dyes will, but they are more susceptible to light fading than untreated direct dyes, and the Retayne treatment, unfortunately, can be removed by washing in hot water. The treatment is easy to apply, though, and, with just the minor care of avoiding drying in sunlight and avoiding washing in hot water (or, of course, with color-destroying bleach), it will preserve the current color of the uniforms you have now for quite a while.

Procion MX dyes are easy to use, because their color is set by the common household chemical known as soda ash or washing soda, rather than by boiling, as some other dyes are set. Room temperature water is sufficient. The easiest way to use Procion MX dyes to produce a single solid color would be to gather several of your uniforms to dye at once in a washing machine, and follow the directions that can be found in the links on the page, "How can I dye clothing or fabric in the washing machine?". Using a washing machine to apply the dye frees you from the drudgery of having to stir your garments in a large bucket for an hour, along with the dye, soda ash, and salt.

The fading of even the best dyes due to chlorine in the water supply can be slowed by adding a product called Anti-Chlor (sodium metabisulfite) to the wash water, but it is far more important to choose a good dye such as Procion MX dye, or to treat inferior dyes with Retayne. The two answers of using a superior dye or using a cationic dye fixative are what you need to concentrate on. Of course, you should also avoid using chlorine bleach, though the oxygen-based products labeled "color safe bleach" are generally safe for dyes.

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Monday, March 05, 2012

Simplify multicoloured batik by directly painting on Procion MX dye

Name: Hector

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Message: First of all thank you very much for your informative and easy to follow instructions on the art of batiking. As I'm sure you're aware, information on this topic is very limited.

I dabbled briefly in batik many years ago and I'm trying to familiarize myself with it again.

My question is this: I'm attempting the tub method of waxing and dyeing and my project is a Cuban flag mixing red and blue. The triangle is red and three of the stripes are blue. If I don't wax the blue initially (along with the white) and dye the red then if I apply the blue (unwaxed) it will obviously be green. What I have tried and am in the process of doing, which is quite cumbersome, is waxing all the white and blue stripes, dyeing the red, removing the wax from the white and blue, rewaxing the white and now the red, and then dyeing the blue, wheeew! Do you have any suggestions? All the projects I did before had a progressive color so I didn't have this concern. I hope this makes sense to you, Any help will be appreciated, thank you!

I think you should consider directly painting on the dye color, instead of immersion dyeing by covering the entire piece with each color of dye in turn. This is a popular method for batik now that we have excellent dyes to use this way.

You could wax the white areas, then paint on thickened blue Procion MX dye for the stripes, let it dry completely, then paint on the thickened red Procion MX dye. You could apply wax over the edge of the blue before applying the red, to reduce the risk of some of the dye creeping over to make purple. (Red and blue mix together to make purple, not green.) Or, instead of waxing, you can use thickened dye to paint with no batik wax at all, but it won't give the batiked texture, and without wax you have to be more careful at the edges where the colors meet.

Since this dye is set with soda ash, either the fabric should be presoaked in the soda ash and allowed to dry before applying the dye, or you should add the soda ash directly to the dye immediately before painting it on. (Do this just before use, because the dye stays good for less than an hour after you add the soda ash to it.) Alternatively, you could use a good fabric paint, such as Jacquard Textile Colors, which doesn't need soda ash to set it, but which needs to be heat-set after it dries by pressing it with a hot iron or putting it into a commercial clothes dryer (hotter than a home dryer) for half an hour. The dry method of heat-setting works for fabric paint but not for true dyes such as Procion MX.

I'm assuming that you are dyeing cotton. If you're dyeing real silk, the same materials and method will work, but nylon will require different dyes. It's very important to choose your dyes based on the fiber content of your fabric. Polyester material would require an entirely different type of dye and method of dye application.

You can thicken Procion MX dye with a product called sodium alginate. This will make it behave more like paint, so that it does not seep right across the fabric. You can add a little alginate to make a thin dye paint, or a lot of alginate to make a thicker one. There's a recipe on the alginate page in the FAQ section of my website.

It's a good idea to test any new technique, such as the dye painting I am suggesting. Try the method out before doing the full-sized project, if you can, to avoid any surprises.

By the way, I don't recommend the use of direct dyes, such as iDye or Cushing Direct Dye, for batik or any other multi-color piece, because direct dyes tend to bleed onto the wrong areas when they are washed. The same is true of all-purpose dyes. Procion MX fiber reactive dyes are idea for batik because they can be used in room-temperature water, so there's no need to risk melting the wax, and they are much more wash-resistant than direct or all-purpose dye.

If you need more details, feel free to contact me again.

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Sunday, March 04, 2012

Dyeing synthetic stretch velvet for rug hooking

Name: Dianne

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Message: I am dyeing synthetic velvet using Cushing direct dye, but citric acid turns the solution lavender, so I have ordered retayne. Will that stop the process and make the fabric take up the dye as citric acid does? I am hoping it will allow me to get deeper tints and spot dye. Thx so much.

What is the fiber content of your synthetic velvet? Rayon velvet is easy to dye, and nylon would not be too bad, but polyester velvet requires boiling in disperse dye, or heat transfer of disperse dye iron-ons.

If you're dyeing rayon velvet, Cushing direct dye should work, but I much prefer fiber reactive dye. If you're dyeing nylon, you should use acid dye, instead.

Why are you using citric acid? Is that included in the Cushing recipe? Citric acid is a good choice to use with acid dyes on nylon.

Not sure the content of the velvet I can get locally for rug hooking. Needs to be stretch. Silk or rayon velvet good for braiding but not hooking as it frays. Cushing says vinegar and salt to set. I used citric. Is retayne not a good setting agent to make the fabric take up the dye and water clear? Thx

Most synthetic velvet is made of polyester. There is nothing you can add to any dye made by Cushing to make it set on polyester. W. Cushing & Company does not make polyester dyes.

Retayne dye fixative is helpful for fixing poorly washfast dye, especially direct dye, on natural fibers. It is not able to make the wrong type of dye stick to polyester, though. It's very important to use only polyester dye, when you're dyeing polyester.

Cushing makes two kinds of dye. Cushing Direct dye is intended for use only on cellulose fibers, such as cotton; since rayon is made of reprocessed cellulose, Cushing Direct dye will work well on it. Cushing Direct Dye will also work on 100% natural silk, but the colors are apt to come out wrong, since they are premixed from multiple colors of dye. Premixed dyes often produce different colors on different types of fibers. Cushing Direct Dye is not supposed to be used on nylon at all. You will get superior results on cotton or rayon if you quit using Cushing Direct dye and use a fiber reactive dye instead, as fiber reactive dye is much longer-lasting and less likely to bleed in the washing water. (See "About Direct Dyes" and "About Fiber Reactive Dyes".)

Cushing Acid Dye is intended for use on wool and other animal hair fibers, as well as nylon and silk. (See "About Acid Dyes".) Like Cushing Direct Dye, it does not work well on polyester.

Citric acid or vinegar are good for setting Cushing Acid Dye on wool, silk, or nylon, but they will not set any type of dye on polyester. Changing the pH of a dyebath can change the apparent color of the dye in the water, but it does not have a permanent effect, since the citric acid and vinegar will wash completely out of the fabric after dyeing. It makes no difference to your final product if the citric acid happens to temporarily change the color of the dye in the water. The final color of the dye will be determined by the pH in the fabric after it is dry, not by the pH of the dyebath.

In looking at a fabric store online, the only stretch velvet I see available is a blend of 90% polyester and 10% spandex. This is a bad combination for dyeing, since polyester requires high heat to dye, while spandex is supposed to be protected from heat. If you look at the care label for any clothing that contains spandex, it will tell you to wash it in cool or warm water, never hot water, and certainly not the boiling water required for polyester dyeing. Since you're not worried about changing the shape of your fabric, though, when you dye it before hooking a rug, it's possible that this won't be a problem for you. Try boiling a small piece of your stretch velvet in water for half an hour to see if the texture is too badly damaged afterwards. If it feels fine for your purposes after it dries, then you can go ahead with dyeing it.

You might be able to get a better idea of the fiber content of your stretch polyester is from a burn test, snipping a tiny piece of the material and burning it carefully to see what ash it produces, and what odor. Nylon produces a celery-like smell, while polyester smells more like burning plastic. It's easier to distinguish cotton and wool: cotton and rayon smell like burning paper, while wool and silk smell like burning hair.

In order to dye polyester, you will need to order some disperse dye. Disperse dye is the only type of dye that works on polyester. (See "Dyeing Polyester with Disperse Dyes".) You can order Jacquard iDye Poly (not plain iDye) from Dharma Trading Company or an art supplier like Blick Art Materials; they have eight colors available. Alternatively, you can order a much wider range of colors of disperse dye from PRO Chemical & Dye in Massachusetts or Aljo Mfg in New York.

For an inexpensive test, you could go to a local fabric store and buy some Crayola Fabric Crayons, which are disperse dye in the shape of a crayon; you color a design onto paper, and then iron it on to the fabric according to the package instructions. Do not try this with regular crayons! Fabric transfer crayons are a completely different product than ordinary wax crayons, although they look almost identical.

I would advise you to do a test with the fabric transfer crayons, similar to my test shown here: "Iron-on Fabric Crayons for Synthetic Fibers". If this method produces brilliant colors, you should then order some disperse dye powder online to use for your stretch polyester, choosing the colors you really want. There are many ways to apply disperse dyes, either by boiling the fabric in the dye or by ironing it on. Every method for dyeing polyester requires both disperse dye and heat.

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