My name is Cynthia Bonner, and I’ve been dyeing fabrics for the past 10 years or so in Santa Barbara, California. I first started my business making patchwork children’s’ clothing, but realized after the first year, that this wasn’t a very wise choice! I then switched to ordering already-sewn garments which I dye and embellish. Much more manageable! I sell my clothing at arts and crafts shows and have been gradually doing more quilt fabric dyeing in the last two years. My goal is to give up traveling on weekends to shows, but I’m finding that even with switching to quilt fabrics, I will still be traveling to shows!!! Oh well…… maybe in my next life.
Once the basics are mastered, dyeing is a creative and rewarding experience. And by taking a few precautions, you won’t be doing too much damage to your life!!!
I dye my fabrics in several ways. Direct application, immersion, and a combination of both. One nice thing about dyeing wovens is that you can re-dye them as often as you like and the fabric (if high quality) looks better each time. When dyeing knits, however, this isn’t true. They somehow take on a “worn” look if dyed more than once.
Anyway, I’ll walk you through the steps I follow and give you some hints that I’ve learned over the years.
I like to start with a high quality base goods (most often use Testfabrics (908-469-6446) 100% cotton mercerized print cloth). This has a nice hand for quilting, and comes with no sizing, additives, etc. It is a good idea to pre-wash it to make sure all the oils, etc. are removed. However, I don’t always do this, especially when I am not dyeing solid colors, where I would want to ensure even coloration. I usually throw the fabric in the machine with hot water, a bit of synthrapol and around a half cup of soda ash for a full load.
Once you are ready with the pre-washed fabric, you now must decide which way to start. This is where you can get as creative as you want! The ideas for resists are endless. I like to use CLEAN rubber bands to hold my twists and wraps.
I’ll start with this, since this is where I began with my clothing years ago, and is perhaps the simplest and has the most predictable outcome. I use 5 gallon buckets, mixing 4-5 cups of salt (purchased from grocery suppliers in 50-100 pound bags) to about one gallon of warm water. I use enough water to dissolve the salt. For stirring, pieces of dowel are good. You want something that is long enough so that you don’t have to run the risk of touching the liquid when you stir (and you’ll be stirring quite a lot!!). The other thing here, is to make sure the stirring stick is CLEAN. I have ruined many a piece by not getting all the dye from previous batches off the stirrer stick. What I’ve ended up with is having different sticks for each color family. For instance, one that is only used for yellow, one for pinks, purples, turquoises, etc. This extra expense is well worth it!! Also, make sure you get a fairly heavy dowel. They break easily when you’re stirring heavy masses of fabric. I like ones at least ¾ inch in diameter. Another thing to watch for is that they don’t have any sharp edges that might snag your fabric.
So, once the salt is dissolved, you’re ready to dissolve the dye. (You should now put on your respirator.) I take an empty plastic jar (which one pound of procion dye comes in from Dharma) and place my powered dye into it. I then fill it up about three quarters full with hot tap water. Then I put the lid on a shake, shake, shake. You’ll notice that different dye colors dissolve differently. Fuchsia dissolves readily, whereas some of the pre-mixed lavenders, are extremely difficult. And I hate the look of undissolved dye particles on my finished product!!! So for the really stubborn ones, I mix them with boiling water. Anyway, the thing to watch out for here is that you don’t fill the mixing container too full. It will explode!!! My worst experience was when I worked in a “nice” bathroom in a rented condo. It had a very large mirror over the vanity (at least 6 feet in length). Well, I was busy shaking my fuchsia dye when the thing exploded. I was lucky that not much of the hot liquid got on me, but where it did go was up and behind the mirror!!! I had the biggest mess you can imagine!. Red dye coming out on the walls from under this mirror, up on the ceiling, high on the walls, you name it. And every time the room would fill with steam, more dye would ooze out! Even months later! Luckily it wasn’t turquoise (the worst to clean up) and I could get most of it off. (And by the way, after a year of dyeing in there, I got my entire security deposit back!!!) But I can tell you, the room looked like the REDRUM set from The Shining!!!
Okay, enough digression. Once your dye is dissolved, pour it into the bucket with the salt water. Here is where I add either more warm water or water directly from the garden hose, depending on the stubbornness of the dye. You don’t want too much hot, however, because this will ‘kill’ the dye. I guess more often than not, I add 1 ½ gallons of hot water and 1 ½ gallons of cold garden hose water. You want to leave enough room in the bucket so that your fabric will fit and the liquid won’t splash out when you stir it. Also remember, you’ll be adding more liquid later (the fixer)….. So I fill the bucket with approximately 4 gallons of water total up to this point.
Another word of caution here…… you will be working with extremely heavy buckets. This is very hard on your back!!!! (I have finally just ruined mine after 10 years of this…..). Anyway, you need to decide beforehand how you’re going to eventually handle these……
So, with my four gallons of nicely dissolved dye, I’m ready to add the fabric. I have already prepared my fabric either by twisting it, wrapping sections tightly with rubber bands, sewing it (shibori style), folding it, etc. I add as much fabric as the bucket comfortably holds. You need enough room to stir easily and each piece should be covered with the liquid. The less fabric, the easier it is on your back to stir. Also, there will be more available dye for each piece. Sometimes pieces have a tendency to ‘float’. I’ve solved this problem by placing a CLEAN plate upside down on top of the fabric and then weighting this down with a CLEAN jar filled with something. The problem with this is that you have to remove these things (with CLEAN gloves) each time you want to stir.
Once all the fabric is in and it is fully immersed, the waiting begins. I usually leave my things in the dye at least two hours. I stir occasionally; perhaps every 20 minutes or so. I know this time in the dye is longer than recommended elsewhere, but I find I have better results.
The next step is fixing the dye. For this I use plastic pitchers (standard kitchen variety which I buy at thrift shops, garage sales, etc.). I put ½ cup of soda ash into a dry pitcher, trying to make sure they’re are no ‘big chunks’. To this I add very hot tap water, being careful not to inhale! This has to be stirred immediately to prevent any hard lumps forming. If you have any chunks that get poured into the dye bucket this can DAMAGE you fabric. It will create holes!!! So, be very careful when pouring the last of the soda ash in. The chunks will be at the bottom of your pitcher. They are hard to dissolve, so I usually end up pouring them down my sewer drain.
Now is the phase when stirring is most critical. You want the fixer to work with the fibers of the fabric instead of with the water. You will need to stir every few minutes for at least an hour. I add about a third of the soda ash liquid at a time. I do this over a period of about 15 minutes. You will be stirring every few minutes for the first hour and then every half hour or so for the next couple of hours. Here is another area where my technique differs from most. I leave the fabric in this solution for a minimum of two hours, but most often at least 24. I like to get the most possible out of my dyes! And since my business started with children’s clothing, I was compulsive about making the color as permanent as possible, so the garments could withstand years of washing!!! Anyway, I often hear complaints from new dyers that their colors don’t come out as saturated as mine, so perhaps this is the reason…. My first tie-dyes were really saturated. I had gone up to a class at Dharma Trading with my young son. This was 350 miles away, so we decided to combine our vacation to the northern California redwoods with it. So the shirts we dyed at Dharma remained in the newspaper and plastic for 10 days in a hot, steamy car!! These colors were very vivid!!!!
The other reason I leave my goods in the liquid for so long is the resist patterns always look better. This is especially true on my rubber band resists such as the spider webs and smoke rings. If they are not left in for 24 hours, there is too much white and they have a cruder, not as attractive look to them.
For my bucket-dyed fabric, I simply pour out the liquid (floor drain is highly recommended!!) and then toss all the fabric into the washing machine. (Only one color at a time.) I wash it and rinse it with a complete cycle in warm water and synthrapol, leaving the rubber bands on. After this has finished, I remove the rubber bands and then send it through a hot wash with synthrapol. I then rinse TWICE in hot rinses. This seems to get all the excess dye out. The easiest way to iron it I’ve found is to dry the fabric for only 3-4 minutes. I remove it while damp and then iron. Voila…….you have some pretty cool stuff!!!!! This is my favorite part of all. I never get tired of seeing the results!!!
This method is just as simple, although much messier. I do this indoors in my garage, because when working with dyes in the sunlight, they become exhausted faster and don’t yield the same color intensity. So, rather than risk lighter colors, I force myself to work in my garage when doing this type of dyeing.
To begin with, I mix all the dyes that I plan on using for the next week or so. I add approximately 4 HEAPING tablespoons to a pitcher (same plastic kitchen type) and then fill with water. Depending on whether I have any on hand or not, I will add urea along with the dye (before adding the water). The temperature of the water again depends on the dye color. With practice, you’ll know which dyes need some warm or hot water to help them along in dissolving. With this method, complete dissolving is not as critical as in the immersion method.
Now, here is where you have a major decision. You can either pre-soak your fabric in a solution of soda ash and water (one cup per gallon of warm water); or add your soda ash directly to the dye solution. I’ve never seen the second method in print, but do know of one other person on the Internet who does this. I find that it saves me a lot of time and mess.
Okay, so you’re ready to begin the dyeing process. You can do whatever you like as far as folding, twisting, scrunching, etc. the fabric. It can be either wet or dry. I use the 16 oz. Plastic bottles which I order from Dharma. I fill them with 14 oz of liquid dye, leaving all the tops off. After all my colors are poured, I go back and add 2 oz of soda ash solution (2 tsp. dissolved in hot water). This needs to be done quickly, as you will be working with time constraints from this point on. After all bottles are full, I cap them and take a rag, put my finger over the top hole and shake. Check for leaks at this point too. Nothing is more frustrating than a drippy bottle!!!! I prefer this size because it keeps me from mixing more dye than I can use in 20-30 minutes (the amount of time you have before the dye starts becoming exhausted). Also, the larger bottles don’t offer as much control. Oh, some people like to thicken their dyes a bit…. The seaweed thickener would be added to the dye once it was poured into the applicator bottle, before the soda ash.
Now the fun begins. Put the dye on any which way you like. Once finished, wrap the pieces in either CLEAN plastic (I hand-wash and line dry many plastic bags each week…..) or newspaper. The black and white pages are the best if you use newspaper. I’ve never had any problems with the ink coming off and ruining anything. I often stack things in cardboard boxes. I dye the pieces (if they are small enough or folded) directly on the newspaper. Then, I simply lift the paper up and put it and the fabric in the box. Then I cover with clean plastic and repeat with the next dyed item. This way, there is no chance that the dye from the piece above will soak through the paper and stain the underneath piece. I also prefer the paper because it absorbs the excess dye. I’ve never had great results using plastic alone.
Now the waiting begins. I wait at least 24 hours before rinsing, most often 3-4 days. Depending on the colors you’ve used, rinsing is done first in the sink and then in the washer. I stack like colors in the sink and let the water (cold) run through them. I do this until the water is fairly clean. They then go in a hot wash in the machine with synthrapol and through a double hot rinse. Finished! Well, not really, because you have the drying and ironing, but in my way of thinking, the work at this point is finished. The drying and ironing is pure pleasure!!!!
If you have different colors, stacking them during the first rinse can be problematic. At this point they will transfer dye to each other. So care must be taken to stack like colors.
I get my most interesting dyes by using a combination of direct application and immersion dyeing. I first complete the process of direct application, usually keeping the fabric flat when I apply the dye. I will put on several colors and let them all wash into one another in a very random fashion. Once these are cured, rinsed and dried, I twist the pieces and place rubber bands around them to hold the bundles. I then go through the complete immersion process as described in the first section. If you direct apply reds and golds, for example, and then over-dye them with deep green, you will get some really incredible fall leaf patterns. The most exciting part for me in this profession is that everything is always new and exciting (as far as the dyeing goes……my favorite part of the business!!)
I’m sure I’ve forgotten some things along the way here, but the directions in the Dharma Trading catalog (800-542-5227) are great. I’ve also heard very good things about Pro-Chem, but since I’m on the West Coast, I’ve always ordered from Dharma. I hope you find the extra tips useful. Happy Dyeing!!!
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