A week ago Sunday, Sandy Ferguson and I (Benita Story) got together to try our hands at dyeing T-shirts and cloth.
First, let me give you a list of supplies and equipment we needed to tie-dye some T-shirts and cloth (50% cotton/50% bamboo, 200 thread count – nice stuff!). Remember, I am a natural dyer, so this dyeing with synthetic dyes is relatively new to me.
Supplies:
1. Procion MX fiber reactive dyes in Fuchsia Red, Lemon Yellow, Cobalt Blue, Turquoise, and Black. Also, because I had an order for a pink T-shirt, I ordered Hot Pink, too. I had some smaller jars of these dyes, but ordered all but the hot pink in 1 pound jars. Sandy and I intend to do a LOT of dyeing over the next several months.
2. Soda Ash
3. Kelp or Sodium Alginate (I had some Alginate someplace, but couldn’t find it so used Jacquard Superclear Dye Thickener instead. I’ll get some powered kelp for the next go around).
4. Urea – make sure the urea is white, not the yellow or brown stuff that is sold as fertilizer.
5. Non-iodized salt
6. 100% cotton T-shirts or all natural fabrics in plant fibers or silk (even though silk is a protein fiber, fiber reactive dyes will work with it). I ordered my T-shirts from Dharma Trading Company for three reasons – they are pretty reasonably priced, have 100% cotton threads sewing them, and are certified PFD (Prepared for Dyeing), so they don’t have to be scoured before dyeing. The cotton/bamboo fabric needed to be scoured because I got it at JoAnn’s and it was sure to still have the sizing on it, which would interfere with dyeing.
7. White Vinegar
8. Synthrapol
9. Calgon – unless you have a reverse osmosis softener, then you don’t need this. Otherwise, this is a very important item.
Equipment (Remember any equipment used in the preparation of dyes or dyed materials can never be used in the preparation of food again – this cannot be emphasized enough):
1. Goggles, dust mask and vinyl gloves
2. Two one-gallon jugs with caps
3. One Two-gallon bucket with lid
4. Four 1 cup, plastic cups or glass jars
5. Measure spoons – 1 T and 1 t in size
6. Measuring cup – at least 1 cup in volume
7. Sharpie
8. Old clothes, an apron or some covering to protect clothes and skin.
9. Long, shallow, plastic box(s) with lid(s) or you can use a cardboard box and line it with a garbage bag.
10. Some sort or grill or grid to placed items to be dyed on – like closet shelves or louvered light covers, cut to size.
11. A washing machine
12. Access to HOT water (You will need to turn up the water heater as high as it will go for part of this – make sure you turn it back down when finished).
13. Lots of old towels or rags.
14. A wet/dry shop vac is very handy if you have one.
15. A couple of funnels, a small one for filling bottles and a large one that will fit into the openings of the jugs.
16. At least five 3-4 cup, wide mouth, plastic bottles with squirt or dispenser lids and an assortment of smaller, plastic bottles with squirt or dispenser lids. These lids need to be able to be sealed as mixed dye can be kept and used for up to two weeks if kept in a cooler with ice or an old refrigerator that will never be used to store food in again.
17. Washable markers.
This first thing you need to do is mark the two one-gallon jugs at the ½ gallon mark. The easiest way to do this is to fill one jug with water and pour half of it into the other jug. When the water levels in each are the same, you have ½ gallon. Draw a line with the sharpie at this point. Mark one jug as Dye Premix Solution and the other jug as Softened Water.
The jug marked Dye Premix Solution also needs to have written on it the following:
½ gallon HOT water
2 tsp Calgon
2 cups Urea
The water for this jug needs to be as hot as you can get it in order to dissolve the urea. Add the Calgon and the urea to the hot water in the jug, screw on the cap and shake until the urea is dissolved. Place in front of a fan so it can cool. This will need to be cool before it can be used.
The jug marked Softened Water also needs to have written on it the following:
½ gallon warm water
2 tsp Calgon.
Add the Calgon to the water in the jug, screw on the cap and shake until the Calgon is dissolved.
Pour one gallon of water into the two-gallon bucket and mark the water line on the outside of the bucket with the Sharpie. Also write the following on the outside of the bucket. Keep a lid on this bucket when not dispensing the soda ash water and this can be kept indefinitely if sealed and stored at room temperature.
1 gallon warm water
4 tsp Calgon
1 cup soda ash (be sure to wear goggles, dust mask and gloves when handling soda ash in granular form – also, it is best to mix this outside if possible for the best ventilation. Always wear vinyl gloves when working with soda ash as liquid, too, as it is rather toxic).
Mark three of the plastic cups at the one-cup line with a Sharpie and write Urea on one, Soda Ash on one, and Dye Premix Solution on the third. The fourth cup is to discharge the soda ash water into later and only needs to say Soda Ash discharge. No line is needed on this fourth cup.
If you know your fabric is prepared for dyeing, wash it in the washing machine with cold water and ½ cup of Calgon for small loads, ¾ cup for medium loads and 1 cup for large loads. Let the washer agitate to dissolve the Calgon, then add the fabric. Let the machine go through a complete agitation cycle, then let it spin out without rinsing. Once it has spun, it is ready to fold and dye.
If your fabric is not PFD or you are unsure, then it needs to be scoured. Wash it in the washing machine with the same amount of Calgon as stated above, plus 2 T Soda Ash in Hot water and let it go through a complete wash cycle using cold water for the rinse cycle. Make sure you add more Calgon to the water when it refills for the rinse cycle.
At this time, you can fold your T-shirt or cloth in order to make the designs you want. I recommend getting the DVD we used because they show, in very good detail, how to fold shirts for several designs.
Once you have folded the fabric or shirt, then use the plastic cup marked Soda Ash (wear gloves) and pour soda ash water over the item until it is saturated. Let this sit for 15 minutes to soak in.
While the fabric is washing and once the Dye Premix Solution has cooled, it is time to mix up your dyes.
Add 1 cup of Dye Premix Solution to each of the large, wide-mouth, plastic bottles (one for each color of dye concentrate). Mark each plastic bottle with the name of the dye with a Sharpie so you can tell what is in it later – Cobalt Blue and Black look alike in concentrate form. Please wear goggles, a dust mask and vinyl gloves while mixing the dyes and doing it outside or in a very well ventilated area is very important. You do not want to breathe the dye powder.
To make yellow: Add 2 T of Procion MX Lemon Yellow to one of the bottles of Dye Premix Solution. Put on the lid and shake until the dye it thoroughly dissolved.
To make Fuchsia: Add 2 T of Procion MX Fuchsia Red to one of the bottles of Dye Premix Solution. Put on the lid and shake until the dye it thoroughly dissolved.
To Make Turquoise: Add 3-1/2 T of Procion MX Turquoise to one of the bottles of Dye Premix Solution. Put on the lid and shake until the dye it thoroughly dissolved.
To make Cobalt Blue: Add 3 T of Procion MX Cobalt Blue to one of the bottles of Dye Premix Solution. Put on the lid and shake until the dye it thoroughly dissolved.
To make Black: Add 4-1/2 T of Procion MX Black (in the darkest black you can get) and 2 T of non-iodized salt to one of the bottles of Dye Premix Solution. Put on the lid and shake until the dye it thoroughly dissolved.
If you are having problems getting any of the dyes to dissolve, you can add up to 10% Softened Water (only!) to each of the bottles. Black and Cobalt Blue need more shaking than the others to dissolve.
To make dilutions of any of these colors, pour softened water into the smaller plastic bottles and add about 12 drops for a light color or as much as needed for the color you want. Colors will always look darker in the bottles than the finish dyed cloth.
To make secondary colors:
Red – mix 2/3 fuchsia and 1/3 yellow together in a smaller bottle.
Orange – Mix 90% yellow and 10% Fuchsia together in a smaller bottle.
You can make two greens by mixing yellow with turquoise or yellow with cobalt blue keeping in mind you’ll need more yellow than the blues.
Also, you can mix two different purples by mixing fuchsia with turquoise or fuchsia with cobalt blue.
You can also play around with other mixes and dilutions to get other colors you want. Please remember, though that a mixture of three primary colors will get you brown.
You can darken any color by adding a bit of black. Black added to yellow will give olive greens.
Lay the folded and tied T-shirt or fabric on top of the grid over the box on inside it so that the dyes can drip away from the cloth.
After you have dyed your T-shirts or fabric and removed the excess dyes from the plastic boxes by either sopping it up with old towels or with a wet/dry vac, place the lid on the boxes and let them set for 24 hours in a place at least 70 degrees. Then you can wash them out. Use hot water and synthrapol (about a Tablespoon per medium load) with a cold rinse. When the fabric or shirts are dry, wash them again in cold water and 2 cups of vinegar to help set the dyes better.
Sandy and I both liked the V-fold design from the DVD, so we ended doing more of them than any. Let me say this, before I go further – Sandy’s color sense is a lot more uninhibited than mine is. I don’t think mine are as interesting as much as I think I have a definitely more subtle design sense than she does. It’s so much fun watching her apply color because she is so much freer with it than I am.
Sandy’s V shirt.
Another V shirt.
Then, Sandy wanted to do a spiral, but she couldn’t decide where to start it, on the chest or further down, so I said why not both? And we did! This one is a double spiral that my husband, Scott, calls pinwheels. I named this one Pinwheel Fireworks. And for you fellow spinners out there, please notice the design is an S on the front and a Z on the back.
Then, I’ve always been fascinated at the wildly different designs you can get from just scrunching up the fabric in a random manner – sort of like creating a Rorschach pattern in dye on a T-shirt. Can you see the cat’s face in the middle of this one? I like this method a lot!
And then, there’s my failure. I had an order for a shirt with the I Spin, I Weave, I Dye in Latin on it, and I offered to dye to pink. Well, guess what – the image bleeds through to the back. So, I will be redyeing this shirt, then applying the image. This one will go into my “Lesson Learned” box and I may wear it for Dye Day.
Now on to the fabric. Remember, this fabric is 50% Cotton/50% Bamboo and we tore it into one-yard lengths before washing and dyeing. They are no longer 1 yard lengths, though. Next lesson learned is to wash the fabric in hot water BEFORE tearing into the 1 yarn lengths. Rats!
This first one we forgot to soak in the soda ash solution first, and it’s not as bright as the others, but for all of that it is my favorite.
Next is the one you saw in the last post that was folded up like an X and we dyed each corner a different color. This is my second favorite.
And last is one where we were just squirting left-over dyes from various bottles on to see what it would do. It was folded identically to the first one, but we needed to apply more dye to this one as there is too much white on it. Scott says this one reminds him of sound waves and I can see that, especially in the top turquoise line.
All of this took about 8 hours, but we spent a lot of that mixing everything, washing all the fabric and T-shirts and watching the DVD so we would know what we were doing. We were dog-tired, but it was fun and we have another dye session coming up on July 5th.
