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Friday, February 15, 2013

Comparing black Procion dyes from Kraftkolour to other dye sellers

Name: Rasa

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Linda Johansen's book
Fabric Dyer's Dictionary
shows how to mix a small number of Procion dyes to obtain a large number of different solid colors

Linda Knutson's book
Synthetic Dyes for Natural Fibers

provides an excellent introduction on how to dye with synthetic dyes.

Country or region: Australia

Message: Paula, your tables re Procion dyes are just magic. Thank you for them. It makes it much easier to work out what dyes others are talking about by having the name comparison table. However, I am stuck with identifying which black is which when people refer to them using Dharma or Prochem names. I purchase my dyes from Kraftkolor in Australia and the names don't match. Can you assist with the provision of the MX code for the blacks please.

[Rasa is referring to the tables on the page "Which Procion MX colors are pure, and which mixtures?".]

All Procion MX dyes that are black are mixed from other colors. There is no Procion MX dye molecule that is black by itself, unlike some other types of fiber reactive dyes which do happen to occur in black, so several colors must be mixed in order to obtain a black.

In some cases, a premixed Procion MX dye is prepared by a manufacturer and sold to multiple retailers; these colors are called "manufacturers' mixes" and will be the same from one supplier to another, with the same MX code. For example, Black MX-CWA and Black MX-CWNA have each been available from several retailers, at various times, though not, as far as I know, from Kraftkolour. Most premixed Procion MX dye colors are mixed in-house by an individual dye supplier; these mixtures cannot have an exact equivalent between dyesellers, since they are mixed to their own formulas, different for each company that mixes them. All of the black Procion dyes from Kraftkolour are proprietary mixes, not manufacturers' mixes, so there is no exact equivalent available from any other dye seller.

Kraftkolour sells three blacks among their Procion MX dyes, which they label Black MX-2R, Black MX-G, and Black GR 200%. Kraftkolour marks one of them, Black MX2R, with an asterisk in their catalog, indicating that they recommend this over similar colors for use as a primary mixing color for making other colors. If you are going to buy only one black Procion dye from Kraftkolour, it should probably be this Black MX2R. Although the color chips in the catalog all look about the same, you can tell a little something about the hue of a dye or dye mixture from its code name. An "R" in the suffix indicates it is probably more reddish than others; a "G" indicates yellowish (from the German word for yellow). This is explained on my page, "What do the letters and numbers in the code name for a Procion MX type dye mean?". However, not all dye sellers follow this convention, so code names are not entirely reliable as clues.

Whenever you use a different pre-mixed dye color from another company, you have to run a few tests to see exactly what color the dye will produce. I am sure that at least one of Kraftkolour's blacks will meet your needs if you do this testing. The most important point, with blacks, is to use more dye. If you need a good solid black, with any Procion black dye mixture, always use a lot of dye powder, much more than you would use for a lighter color. You may need to use up to 10% of the weight of the dry fabric or other fiber, or even up to 12%.

It's worth pointing out that none of the black dye mixtures sold among the Procion MX dyes, from any dye seller, should be relied on to make a neutral gray when used at more dilute concentrations; only grays should be purchased for use as toning colors, because blacks will tend to be bluish or reddish or brownish when used in smaller doses. The one exception is ProChem's 609 deep black, which is pretty much neutral at every concentration, when used for high-water-ratio immersion dyeing to produce solid colors. I would try Kraftkolour's premixed "Grey MXB" for use in toning other colors.

Kraftkolour also indicates that their Black GR 200% is a hot reactive, not actually a Procion dye but another sort of reactive dye that can be used with the Procions, like Dharma's old Jet Black #250, which I believe contains both Procion and non-Procion reactive dyes. These "hot black" dyes require that conditions be warmer in order to react fully with the textile fiber. Lower temperatures will result in off colors. However, some non-Procion blacks are more satisfactory than the Procion blacks, deeper and darker, so these hot reactive dyes have been popular in spite of the inconvenience of the more stringent temperature requirements. The "200%" description indicates that this particular dye is very concentrated, containing less diluant chemicals, so you need use only half as much dye powder to get the standard color intensity from that dye; you can probably get by using less dye powder of that color than of another black.

If you choose to use a non-Procion MX black dye mixture with your Procion MX dyes, you will need to be sure that the reaction temperature, for the reaction between dye and fiber, is high enough. For hints on how to accomplish this most conveniently, see my page, "What is the effect of temperature on fiber reactive dyes?"; scroll down to the section headed "Ways to increase your reaction temperature".

Among the black dyes sold by Dharma Trading Company, there are some recent changes. Their #250 Jet Black, which, like Kraftkolour's Black GR 200%, contains a non-Procion dye in its mixture, has become too expensive for them to make any longer. They still have some, for those who prefer this dye, but will run out soon. They are replacing it with a new in-house mixture, #275 Hot Black, which also contains a non-Procion dye and does best with higher temperatures. We can speculate about whether one of these two dyes from Dharma might be more similar to Kraftkolour's Black GR 200%, but there is no way to tell without trying them side-by-side.

Some dyers are very fond of Dharma's #250 Jet Black, but I confess that I personally have never liked it nearly as much as some of the other blacks, because I have often failed either to use enough dye powder or to raise the temperature high enough, so I ended up with a rather dispiriting dull brown, instead of black. I've always preferred the bluer black dye mixtures, such as Black MX-CWNA. I might actually be happier with the less expensive replacement #275 Hot Black than with #250 Jet Black. I won't know until I try it.

If you ever wanted to try mixing your own black Procion MX dye, you would start with the darkest, dullest unmixed dye colors you can. Dark dull colors do not require as much dye powder to reach the desired depth of shade. You could probably never obtain a true dark black if you were to start only with bright clear colors such as turquoise MX-G, rubine MX-B, and yellow MX-8G, since there are limits on how much dye a given amount of fiber can hold. Start with a dark navy blue, such as blue MX-2G or navy MX-R. The next step would be to counter the blue-ness of the hue by adding an orange. Formerly the best choice would have been the very dull-colored brown MX-GRN, but this has become difficult to obtain, and in most cases has been replaced with a premixed color that was made by mixing brighter dyes, so orange MX-2R would be the next choice. The next step is to correct the hue by adding the opposite color to whatever color cast your black mixture has. If it is purplish, add yellow; if it is bluish, add orange; if it is greenish, add red. Most dyers find this process to take more time than they want to spend, so having the pre-mixed black dye mixtures available to use from our dyesellers is a great convenience.

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Saturday, February 09, 2013

Name: April

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Delta Ceramcoat Clear Textile Medium

Country or region: USA

Message: Hi Paula. Love this website. I am very entry level at fabric dying, but love the challenge. Have you much experience with acrylic paint dying on fabric? Can I dilute the paint with water for a watercolor affect? Will the paint last through laundering, or should I use something to preserve the color?

Painting fabric with acrylics always gives very different results than dyeing. The paint is made of tiny solid particles which are not actually dissolved in the water in the paint. As the water in the paint dries, the remaining water in the fabric moves, causing the tiny particles of pigment to collect in parts of the fabric. It's quite a different effect from what you get with dyes.

If you paint on soft fabric, such as clothing or a sheet (a very different experience from painting gessoed canvas), using ordinary artists acrylics, diluted to thinness, the results will be reasonably permanent even when washed, if you are carefully to thoroughly saturate the fabric with the diluted paint, and allow it to dry for a very long time before washing it for the first time. However, you can really feel the acrylic paint, after it dries. It is always at least a little stiff and scratchy, no matter how much you dilute it. A thinner acrylic paint such as Liquitex Soft Body colors works better than a thicker acrylic paint, but it's not ideal.

What you can do, if you want a softer result that does not wear off as readily, is either mix your acrylic paint with a special medium called fabric medium, or buy fabric paint pre-mixed with the fabric medium already in it.

Good choices for turning your acrylic paints to fabric paints include Liquitex Fabric Medium, Golden GAC 900 Fabric Medium, or any other brand of acrylic paint additive specifically labeled "fabric medium" or "textile medium". There are many different brands, of various thicknesses, most of which I have never even tried. There is Delta Ceramcoat textile medium, FolkArt Acrylic Textile Medium, Martha Stewart Crafts Tintable Fabric Medium, Jo Sonja's Textile Medium, and so forth. Each of these products will turn acrylic paint into a much improved fabric paint, which will be softer and more wear-resistant than acrylic paints straight from the tube. They will vary in thickness and feel; once you settle on one product you may want to keep using that brand. It can often be difficult to find a fabric medium in your local crafts store, so you might not have many choices unless you order online.

Fabric paints are a convenient alternative to mixing your own fabric paint by combining acrylic paint with fabric medium, and some give special effects you won't easily obtain by mixing your own. You can often find a good quality fabric paint in a local crafts store, or you can order from a source such as Dharma Trading Company, which carries a wide range of different brands, often including larger containers which are more economical. The labels give hints as to whether a particular fabric paint is thick or thin. Some types sit on top of the fabric, while others soak in. You are not going to want "slick" or "puffy" paint. My favorite fabric paint for a watercolor effect is Jacquard Dye-Na-Flow; similar products are SetaSilk and Setacolor Transparent. Dye-Na-Flow is very thin, designed to flow smoothly, almost like dye. You can dilute it with up to 25% water to make it even thinner, or, for paler colors, you can dilute with Jacquard Neopaque Extender, which acts as additional binder. This is important because, if you dilute your paint or medium with too much water, you will end up with an inadequate amount of acrylic binder to glue the pigment to the fabric, resulting in poorer resistance to washing. Jacquard Neopaque Extender is similar to Fabric Medium or Textile Medium, but it is a thinner, easier-flowing formula than most.

Some brands of fabric medium, perhaps all, and most fabric paints, will require heat-setting after they dry, in order to became as permanent as possible. Heat-setting fabric paints is entirely different from steam-setting fabric dyes: you must use a dry heat, rather than steam, to heat-set acrylic paints. Be sure to carefully follow the manufacturer's instructions for heat-setting, which should be on the label on the jar of fabric medium. In most cases this will require either ironing the fabric, after the paint has dried completely, using a hot iron, or drying it for a certain period of time in a hot commercial clothes dryer (even though the paint must already dry before you put it in the dryer). Note that home clothes dryers are much less satisfactory for heat-setting than laundromat clothes dryers, because the home models do not get nearly as hot (this, of course makes them kinder to clothing). Do not wash any painting you've made with fabric medium or fabric paint until after you have either heat-set it or let it dry for an extended period of time, perhaps as long as a month. In some cases a fabric paint that should be heat set will become satisfactorily permanent to washing after it has been allowed to dry for over a month, even without heat-setting, but you must not rely on this to be true unless you have tested it with the specific brand and dilution of the materials you are using. When you do a big piece, daub some of your fabric paint on similar scrap fabric so that you can test-wash it later.

You can avoid heat-setting altogether, even with products that should be heat-set, if you mix the fabric paint immediately before use with an acrylic catalyst, such as Jacquard Airfix or Versatex "No Heat" Fixative. After you air-dry a painting made with a fabric paint that has been mixed with one of these fixatives, it will be permanent, without heat-setting. If you use one brand of no-heat fixative with a different brand of fabric paint, you must be sure to test to make sure that the combination works together.

No matter what sort of fabric paint you use, home-made or ready-mixed, be careful with it when you wash it. Always turn a hand-painted garment inside-out before laundering. The same rule applies to any sort of printed t-shirt you buy. Turning garments inside out makes a big difference in how long a printed design will last when washed repeatedly.

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Tuesday, February 05, 2013

Can a black poly/spandex jumpsuit be dyed to a different color?

Name: Trina

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Dye polyester and poly/cotton blends

Country or region: USA

Message: I am the mother of the groom. Found this perfect jumpsuit for the occasion, but it's black. It is 96% Poly, 4% Spandex. Can this be dyed to a different color. Can you recommend someone I could send it to and have it done correctly if it can be done. Can you help!

No. I'm sorry to say that polyester/spandex is an undyeable fiber blend. Not even a professional dyer can successfully dye this fiber blend!

Instead, the polyester and the spandex must be dyed before they are blended together when the fabric is made. This is because the high heat required for dyeing polyester is much hotter than the maximum temperature that spandex can tolerate.

In addition, you cannot dye anything that is black another color; since dye is transparent, you cannot see any color you put on top of a darker color.

If your jumpsuit did not contain spandex, you might be able to change it from black to another color by applying a sulfur-based color removing chemical, such as Rit Color Remover or Jacquard Color Remover. However, this process is unpredictable: the black dye in the jumpsuit might change to brown or orange, or it might not change at all, depending on exactly what dye it is. It doesn't matter in this case, though, because all of these color remover products can be used only with very hot water, which will damage spandex.

You can't use chlorine bleach to try to remove the black dye in your jumpsuit, because chlorine bleach destroys lycra. It also damages polyester, producing an ugly dull yellow stain that can't be removed.

There is no way around it. Your polyester/spandex jumpsuit will have to stay black. Perhaps you could get a local seamstress to sew a similar jumpsuit, using fabric that is the right color.

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Friday, February 01, 2013

Name: Julia

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Linda Knutson's book
Synthetic Dyes
for Natural Fibers

provides a thorough introduction to hand-dyeing

Country or region: Illinois, USA

Message: Hello, thanks for all the wonderful information! My question is: Can I dye a blue dress (cotton, nylon blend with cotton lining) green? The dress is hand-wash in cold. Should I use a yellow all-purpose dye, or should I somehow remove the color from the dress first? I would like to achieve a nice semi-dark green (something that looks natural and great with greenery. Thank you so much for considering my question!

That's a very pretty dress. The instructions say to hand-wash in cold water only, so I suspect that dyeing in hot water could be a terrible mistake, as it's likely that the cotton would shrink in hot water; since the nylon is likely to not shrink, you might find that the 100% cotton lining shrinks a lot more than the 62% cotton/38% nylon shell, which would ruin the shape of the dress. This means that I advise you strongly to avoid hot water; you will have to avoid all-purpose dye, such as Rit dye, as well, since it requires hot water in order to work. If you were allowed to use hot water on this dress, I think this would be an ideal use for all-purpose dye, since it can color both cotton and nylon to similar colors at the same time, but all-purpose dye is simply not going to work without hot water.

A cold water fiber reactive dye, such as Procion MX dye, is a much safer choice. Procion MX dyes work very well at room temperature (as long as the room is not too cold, no lower than 70°F), when used with soda ash or washing soda to set the dye. While the normal process is to use very hot water both for pre-washing and for washing out the excess dye after dyeing, you can hope that the dress will do okay without hot-water prewashing, and you can get by with cold water for the after-dyeing washout if you repeat the washing many times, and take care to wash the dress separately from other garments. (When you use very hot water for washing out excess Procion MX dye, then you can mix colors in the laundry with abandon, because properly washed-out Procion MX dye is extraordinarily washfast.)

There is a risk with using only cold water for pre-washing: you never know when a commercially-available dress will turn out to have invisible stains on it that remain from manufacture. If there is, say, a big blotch of some invisible finishing chemical on one part of the dress, then, after dyeing, that spot will remain mostly undyed. There is nothing you can do about this but hope, however. Keep this in mind as one of the risks when you decide whether or not to dye the dress. I think chances are better than even that your dyeing will be successful, but you must never dye anything whose loss you cannot afford. This dress is not being sold specifically for dyeing; those garments that are sold for this purpose are labeled "PFD" (for "Prepared For Dyeing") or "RTD" (for "Ready To Dye"). When you buy a dress that is labeled PFD or RTD, you know that you have a much higher chance of success in dyeing it. Dyeing clothing without the PFD label is always chancy.

Now, changing that color to green will be very easy. If you use a pure lemon yellow, you will get a bright clear dark green. If you use a more golden-toned shade of yellow, you will get a more olive-y sort of green, which I think is what you are looking for. I recommend you order some Procion type yellow MX-GR dye, which is called Procion #3 golden yellow by Dharma Trading Company, or PRO MX #112 tangerine yellow by PRO Chemical & Dye. If you are buying Jacquard Products Procion MX dye, which is available in some superior art or craft supply stores, you might try a combination of their 004 lemon yellow with their 010 bright golden yellow.

The two layers of the dress will come out different shades of green when dyed with a yellow Procion MX dye. Only the cotton fiber in the shell will take the dye; the nylon will not take any Procion dye when used with soda ash. (To dye nylon with Procion MX dye, you have to use vinegar or citric acid instead of soda ash, but this works only in hot water; you will need to avoid this due to the great likelihood of uneven shrinkage.) When dyed with the same yellow dye, the shell will end up more bluish and less greenish, while the lining, which is 100% cotton, will end up more greenish, less bluish. Given the construction of the dress, I think that the resulting effect would be lovely, all the same. However, any stitching, such as at the seams, is undoubtedly made of polyester thread, which will remain the original blue, since polyester cannot be dyed with cotton dyes. (Polyester dyes require extremely high heat, and so are completely out of the question here.)

Don't try to remove the original color of the dress. For one thing, the original blue of that dress is a perfect color to use to make green, just by adding yellow. Worse, color removing chemicals, such as Rit Color Remover, all require very hot water; the only exception is chlorine bleach, which can be used at room temperature, but, horribly, will destroy nylon. A third issue is that color remover often changes the color to something unexpected, such as a brownish orange, which would not be a good base for the color you want to produce.

I am not at all sure that you should dye this dress. If it's a new dress, one you've never worn, then you will be out $100 if the dyeing does not go well, due to imperfections in the fabric. It is much better to dye only garments that you don't mind too much if you ruin them. The best choices are a thrift shop find for $5, or an old dress that you will never wear again unless you can change the color, or a new ready-to-dye dress purchased from Dharma Trading Company, or fabric yardage that you dye and then have a seamstress use to sew a new dress for you. However, if you are willing to take the risk, then Procion MX dye is the best dye to use for this dress. You might succeed and end up with the perfect dress in the perfect color.

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