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:: March 12, 2008 Dyeing Lessons
For my baby shower my friend Christie gave me some hand-dyed/stamped cloth diapers (to be used as burp cloths). I love them and ever since I have wanted to try my hand at dyeing. After what seemed like a long time gathering all the supplies and finding a some time this past weekend, I got my chance. Here's how it went.
I bought three colors of procion MX dye from my local art store: chocolate brown, avocado green, and pearl gray. You also need soda ash, but the art store was out so I went by the pool store for some. When I asked the guy there for some, he asked me immediately if I was doing some dyeing, so they are familiar with this request. I gathered a bunch of cotton onesies, new big ones and old small ones, and bought three yards of Robert Kaufman kona PFD. All together it weighed 2 1/2 pounds. Each 2/3 oz bottle dyes one pound of fabric so I figured I was good. You also need salt -- a lot of salt -- two cups per three gallons of water. We had a big box of coarse Kosher salt on hand and a container of regular table salt. Now that I (duh) read the instructions on the Jacquard site, I see you're supposed to use non-iodized salt. I knew the coarse salt would probably not dissolve well, and thus cause problems, but I forged ahead anyway. I'm not too into the mottled, variegated hand-dyed look; I was after more solid colors. Apparently the mottled look is best achieved by the low-water immersion technique, so I opted for tub dyeing and pretty much just followed the directions on the bottle of dye. However along the way I referenced pburch.net and Lisa Call's great series of posts on her process.
I got the fabric wet, then filled three buckets full of hot tap water and dumped in the salt. I didn't pre-mix my dyes or use urea, just (carefully) dumped each jar into the salt water mixture. You have to use a mask and gloves as you do this, as the dyes are very toxic in powder form. Then I put the fabric and some of the onesies in and stirred. The soda ash goes in next. I realized I was supposed to have already dissolved the soda ash in water. I decided to just dump it straight into the dye solution. It is coarse, about like laundry detergent, so it probably didn't dissolve all that well. However, the brown and green looked great immediately, rich and deep. The gray looked bad from the get-go, more purple than gray and with lots of spots all over.
I let it sit for a little while then added more onesies, so that they would come out a shade or two lighter than the first fabrics I put in. (They did.) I let it all sit, stirring occasionally, for a few hours more. The dye jars say 50 minutes but I let it go longer. Then I removed the clothes and fabric from one bucket and ran them under the faucet a little bit. I squeezed them out, put them aside, and dumped the bucket of dye solution down the drain. I was worried about staining but there was none. Then I transported the fabrics in the empty bucket to the washer, which was filling with cold water. I repeated the steps for the other two colors. You can wash them all together without worrying about color transfer. Last, I ran two more cycles on hot. Lisa Call recommends turning your water heater up to max before you do this so the wash water is as hot as possible. The heat is what removes the leftover dye at this stage, so you want it as hot as possible. I didn't bother with synthrapol, a special detergent that dyers use that bonds with the remaining dye molecules and wisks them away. The results:
The gray was all but disastrous. Clearly the dye powder didn't dissolve very well before I put the fabric in. I think there was a layer of powder still on top of the water that hadn't busted through the surface tension before I added the fabrics. Although, the second round of onesies turned out great! (Oops - no picture of those.) The brown and green turn out lighter than I thought they were and far less than solid. Turns out I didn't stir the mixture enough. Still, Otto wears it well.
posted by in Other Crafts :: Comments (49) :: link :: June 23, 2005 Beautiful Scraps
I wish I had known about Lovelydesign's Beautiful Scraps project in time to participate. But, there is the impending gallery to look forward to, and in the meanwhile, the links to the participants are sending me to some amazing, new-to-me designers, illustrators, artists, and crafters. (via Lisa Solomon) posted by in Other Crafts :: Comments (1) :: link :: February 21, 2005 Collage Kids
Collage Kids is a Flikr group featuring themed collages. The current theme is The Fortean Times. The collage above is by wastedpapiers, who is my favorite along with the mighty Swapatorium.
I tried my hand at collage the other week at the Austin Church of Craft meeting thanks to Natalie, who then proceeded to teach me a thing or two about beading at the Austin Glitterati group the week after that. New hobbies! posted by in Other Crafts :: link :: January 11, 2005 Recycled Clothes
I've had the felted thrift store sweaters, old corduroy pants, and grampa's shirts piling up for way too long. I got the urge the other night to just start cutting them up, not for any specific project, but just to cut them up. I picked 5" squares, which seems to have yielded a good amount from each garment. There's a pile of 4" squares from the leftovers, and I still have a pile of scraps for future applique or give-away. Clearly the squares will all turn into blankets/quilts/pillows at some point. Now my hands are sore, I burned though a new rotary cutting blade, and my good scissors have become squeaky! posted by in Other Crafts :: link :: January 24, 2004 Lucky Stars
Lucky Stars, finally I have found you. At least I think I have. Once upon a time, a friend of mine got a gift from another friend of a Chinese food takeout box full of origami stars. Each star had a little tab sticking out of them. You pulled the tab and the star unraveled, and on the resulting strip of paper there was a fortune. The giftmaker would not reveal the technique. This confused me, but I had never met the person, so I wasn't about to pry. I looked everywhere online (I thought) and made it a habit to browse origami books in the bookstores, but to no avail. And here they are! Hooray. I will be sure to try it and report back. posted by in Other Crafts :: link
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