Paula Burch's All About Hand Dyeing

Low water immersion dyeing (second example)

September 2, 1998

blue, purple, and fuchsia tank dress

blue, purple, and fuchsia tank dress

This time the fuchsia had no trouble coming through! I followed essentially the same recipe as in example 12, the blue shirt, but this time added the fuchsia cold, without sodium carbonate; after some time, I added a solution containing a total of 1 teaspoon per cup final volume, which was about four cups.

This shapeless tank dress is actually reasonably flattering to a wide variety of body types: worn with a belt and bloused over slightly, it's not bad on a plump woman. However, the straps are so wide that something fit to be seen in public must be worn underneath. Dharma sells it in one rather large size, about equivalent to an XXL men's tee.

This is half-size reduction of a snapshot. To see the full-size image, click on the small image to the left.

How I did it

  1. I crumpled the dress and stuffed the resulting flat disk into the bottom of a 2.5 pound coffee can lined with a plastic bag.
  2. Next, I mixed 4 teaspoons Procion turquoise into 1 cup of water, adding 1 talespoon urea (quite unnecessarily). After pouring that over the dress, I repeated this with 1 cup of dye solution made with two teaspoons of cerulean blue, and finally did the same with 1 cup of dye solution prepared with 2 teaspoons of fuchsia. (Note to self: always *halve* quanitites of fuchsia in the future.)
  3. After allowing the colors to mix and blend, without agitation or stirring of any sort, for about an hour, I added a cup of water containing 4 teaspoons of sodium carbonate (which I'd dissolved in boiling water and allowed to cool.)
  4. The next morning, I machine washed the dress in first cold, then warm, and finally hot water.

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    Page created: Sunday, August 30, 1998
    Last updated: Sunday, August 30, 1998
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