The Tale of the Disappearing Dye
2012-Jul-27, Friday 07:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chebeNormally 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.
Here are the t-shirts after their hour in the dye, freshly rinsed and left to dry. Look at that lovely deep violet colour!
Because they were still wet I left kitchen paper beneath them to catch the drips. When I came in the next day I noticed that the dye had separated; mostly red in the middle with blue halos around the outside.
This did not bode well and indeed was not limited to the run-off. Similar tidal patterns of separation were visible all over the tshirts! Distressing! But hold on, maybe that is just the excess, maybe it'll wash out? The colour was already noticeably lighter than the day before though, so hopefully it won't all wash out. (You'll notice that the thread is still white. It's polyester, and that usually won't change colour with cotton/natural-fibre dyes.)
One wash later and that weird excess dye did come out, but, well, so did plenty of the dye I'd wanted to stick. *sigh* Instead of an "Intense Violet" I have more like a mild heather, a light purple. It's distinctly disappointing, this disappearing dye dalliance.
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.
Here are the t-shirts after their hour in the dye, freshly rinsed and left to dry. Look at that lovely deep violet colour!
Because they were still wet I left kitchen paper beneath them to catch the drips. When I came in the next day I noticed that the dye had separated; mostly red in the middle with blue halos around the outside.
This did not bode well and indeed was not limited to the run-off. Similar tidal patterns of separation were visible all over the tshirts! Distressing! But hold on, maybe that is just the excess, maybe it'll wash out? The colour was already noticeably lighter than the day before though, so hopefully it won't all wash out. (You'll notice that the thread is still white. It's polyester, and that usually won't change colour with cotton/natural-fibre dyes.)
One wash later and that weird excess dye did come out, but, well, so did plenty of the dye I'd wanted to stick. *sigh* Instead of an "Intense Violet" I have more like a mild heather, a light purple. It's distinctly disappointing, this disappearing dye dalliance.
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!
