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The Tale of the Disappearing Dye
2012-Jul-27, Friday 07:18 pmNormally when I dye fabric I just dump the powder and salt in the washing machine and let the chemistry and engineering do what they do best. But it's wasteful, especially when all you want to dye is one or two t-shirts. So I decided to dip my toe into the domain of hand-dye.
I had two fine white cotton t-shirts to hand; one with blue and red print on the front and black on the back, the other with green and orange print on the front and black on the back. Clearly what they needed was purple. (I have been accused of thinking everything needs to be more purple, but see nothing wrong with this.) I found a nice dark, deep, "Intense Violet" colour. Perfection.
Perhaps doing it at the hackerspace was a mistake. There were many people to help, but largely it resulted in distraction and mass mis-reading of the instructions. We did it 'wrong'; you're supposed add the dye-water to the salt-water! But, t-shirts got dyed, so it can't have been that wrong.
( Pictures )
But, they're still cotton t-shirts, so there's no problem with trying again. And the coverage is nice and even, I especially like how even the gaps in-between the printed bits took the colour just as well. Maybe I'll get a better colour next time, if you know, I actually follow the instructions. But there will be more modding of these t-shirts first. Like adding of waists, and maybe lowering the necklines. Though that's a task for another day!
I had two fine white cotton t-shirts to hand; one with blue and red print on the front and black on the back, the other with green and orange print on the front and black on the back. Clearly what they needed was purple. (I have been accused of thinking everything needs to be more purple, but see nothing wrong with this.) I found a nice dark, deep, "Intense Violet" colour. Perfection.
Perhaps doing it at the hackerspace was a mistake. There were many people to help, but largely it resulted in distraction and mass mis-reading of the instructions. We did it 'wrong'; you're supposed add the dye-water to the salt-water! But, t-shirts got dyed, so it can't have been that wrong.
( Pictures )
But, they're still cotton t-shirts, so there's no problem with trying again. And the coverage is nice and even, I especially like how even the gaps in-between the printed bits took the colour just as well. Maybe I'll get a better colour next time, if you know, I actually follow the instructions. But there will be more modding of these t-shirts first. Like adding of waists, and maybe lowering the necklines. Though that's a task for another day!
