community of dyers

To do the 25 or so shirts last week using the Mindarts kit from Michaels had good and likeable results for the participants but were not as good as I would prefer. I did tie up the shirts prior to mixing the dye. The colors are not as vibrant IMO as Tulip premixed and certainly not as bright and vibrant as the red and blue I mixed from scratch previously. Even the first dyed shirts seemed a little dull to me in comparision. Perhaps these kits were a little old. I did note that after one hour the dye intensity was really starting to decline due to the soda ash in the premix. I consider the finish product after one plus hours to be more of a stone washed quality rather than a true pastel. The best way would have been to have two more sets of small bottle to pour fresh mix into but I only had one extra set. Since the 2 adults and one child had no dye experience they took longer to dye. For a bulk project the people were satisfied and that pleased me. For me I will mix dharma dyes from scratch for better results. Incidently I would assume one could mix colors in liquid form--orange mixed with water to equal red in water to get the true red. Also I assume one could dilute already mixed dye to make a pastel shade. Right? Thanks for all the help on this site.