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Trying for a tie dye effect on silk, but the colors keep running together

Ok, I'm stumped and I hope someone can help!

I'm dyeing a medium-weight piece of silk with Jacquard acid dyes. The result I'd like to get is kind of an "organic" tie dye that highlights the crinkled fabric, either by maintaining the white "veining" or using a darker color to accentuate the crinkled areas. I've tried to do this by scrunching the fabric together in random spots and tying it with string. The problem is, my dyes are spreading too quickly and I can't keep the crispness of the scrunched areas. I end up with very saturated, almost solid areas where all of the colors have pooled together.

This is the closest example I can find of the effect I'm trying to achieve (scroll down to see the entire piece):
http://www.lauraeliason.com/the-secret-boutique/2011/8/1/crescendo.html

I wash the silk with synthrapol beforehand and usually soak it in half-water, half vinegar overnight. In addition to tie dye, I've tried freezing the silk, LWI, and making free-form scrunches without tying--I just can't figure out how to apply the colors I want and keep them from becoming a giant puddle of muddy brown or black. Another issue is that I'm using squeeze bottles and the dye--especially the black--seems to come whooooshing out, which floods the silk and again, soaks through the white areas. I've read through some of the posts about maintaining crisp lines, but they all seems to refer to other types of dyes rather than acid dyes.

Thank you!

By jane775 at 2011-08-30 18:20 | Silk | login or register to post comments | previous forum topic | next forum topic

keeping acid dye from running

Using less dye might help. Those squeeze bottles don't sound at all right for what you're doing. I expect you'll also want to try thickening your dye. Many tie-dyers add sodium alginate to fiber reactive dyes for tie-dyeing cotton; there's no reason why it shouldn't help with your acid dyes on silk.

Jacquard Products has instructions for using a thickener with Jacquard Acid dye:

SCREEN PRINTING, STAMPING & PAINTING:

The traditional method of printing with dye is to add the dye to a thickener paste. This method can be used for screen printing, hand-painting, and stamping and many other direct application techniques. It is important to prepare the fiber by washing to remove the sizing.

  1. Wash, dry and iron the fabric.
  2. Prepare dye thickener paste (see below).
  3. Add dye, either powder or stock solution, to thickener. Proportion the dye in the container in relation to the amount of thickener paste and desired intensity.
  4. Print, paint, or stamp on fabric.
  5. Air dry. Steam set. (See Steam setting directions.)

Preparing Dye Thickener:

When screen printing with dye thickened with sodium alginate, the print base should be as thin as the image will allow. Dye printed in too thick a base will halo from the image before the fabric is cured or will accumulate in the corners, altering the image. Sodium Alginate SH is a high viscosity, low solids type of alginate thickener used primarily for cotton and other cellulose fibers. It may also be used for silk when fine line definition is not required. Sodium Alginate F is a low viscosity, high solids alginate used for silks and synthetics when fine line definition is desired. Use about 2 1/2 times more of the F to equal the viscosity of SH.

  1. Mix chemical water by adding 1⁄4 cup of urea & 1 tablespoon vinegar to 1 quart of water.
  2. Sprinkle sodium alginate over water and stir constantly for 10 minutes, OR mix in blender.
  3. Let stand for a few hours or overnight before using. Mixture may be stored in refrigerator for many months.

You can use sodium alginate for this, the same that people use with fiber reactive dyes, or you can use another thickener that won't work for fiber reactive dyes, since you don't have to worry about a carbohydrate-based thickener competing for the dyes. Check out my page Sodium alginate, Superclear, and other dye thickeners

The one question is how much thickener you will need. The recipe above doesn't say, because you can use more alginate for a thick dye paint that you can apply like oil paint, or less alginate to reduce spreading. Lacking other instructions, I'd suggest you might start by trying two teaspoons of the SH alginate per liter of dye mix, as in Michael Fowler's tie-dyeing recipe for fiber reactive dyes; given Jacquard's instructions to use 2.5 times as much F as SH, you might want to use five teaspoons of alginate F per liter of dye mix, which works out to be a little less than one and a quarter teaspoons per cup.

Sorry I can't pass on an exact recipe. Keep records of what you use, and please let us know how it works for you. Always be sure to use water softener (sodium hexametaphosphate), or else use distilled water, when you make mixtures with sodium alginate, because hard water ions can turn alginate to a very thick gel.

-Paula

By pburch at Wed, 2011-08-31 14:14 | login or register to post comments

keeping acid dye from running

Ah, I thought thickener might help. This is for a class project where I have access to several kinds of chemicals, so I will definitely experiment with thickener and try using the water softener. Thank you for providing this great resource!

By jane775 at Thu, 2011-09-01 15:43 | login or register to post comments

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