community of dyers

I've been dyeing a number of different fabrics recently and got a bit confused about which gave what results....some "economy muslin" from Dharma, which is supposed to be mercerized, gave much lighter colors than the same formula I had used on Pimatex. I understand that different dyelots, conditions, etc., can affect outcome. Now, the main question is: with bleached, mercerized muslins of similar thread count and weight, should one expect very close colors when dyed in same dyebath or will there still be wide variance between brands or suppliers? I thought I was learning a good deal about what to expect, and now I stumped again.

Well, another consideration is that the substrate color of muslin is very different. Pimatex is bright white, lawns usually are too ... but muslins are usually some sort of creamy/beige color before the dye hits them. Some even border on light yellow. Pimatex and other white-goods produce colors I find too bright for my taste -- I love the muted look of dyes on muslin. But others call those colors muddy.

So for trying to duplicate colors on other fabric you can applique more easily, remember that the starting fabric will govern how it looks in the end. It's not a case of a white is a white is a white-- just the opposite! You will be surprised, once you look carefully, at varied whites can look. --Pia

Isn't the yellowish-tan color of muslin due to its being unbleached? Wouldn't bleached and mercerized muslin be white? I have never myself worked with bleached muslin, so I'm not sure of this. The pictures at Dharma show the usual muslin color for their unbleached natural muslin, but seem to show a reasonably true white for their mercerized bleached muslin. Or compare their colors for bleached and unbleached (but unmercerized) here.

I remember dyeing a pair of natural-color unbleached hemp socks in LWI with several shades of blue, and getting distinctly greenish blues as a result. It really does make a difference what "white" you start out with.

-Paula

You are right, Paula. Bleached muslin is definitely white, not cream colored, and I use it a lot to dye for my art quilts. The colors come out just as bright and vibrant as when I dye t-shirts, and I love it as a low cost fabric for projects.
Here is a picture of some yardage I dyed awhile back using bleached muslin:

It came out even brighter than the photo shows...

Judy

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Aah, I didn't even think of it as the original posts were about Pima and mercerization ... lovely to see how bright your piece on bleached muslin turned out, Judy. And if it had been done on unbleached muslin, it would certainly have had a different character. Thanks for posting such a good example! --Pia

Thank you, Paula, for your quick and expert help. Now, if I have a cotton fabric not already mercerized, can I do it myself? That would make for a greater selection of fabric if it is not too complicated a recipe.

No, I really don't like the idea of home mercerization. It requires the use of very strong, caustic, dangerous sodium hydroxide. (Sodium hydroxide is also known as lye or caustic soda, and it can cause severe burns and/or blindness if you have an accidental splash without the necessary safety precautions.)

There are two kinds of mercerization, slack and under tension. The slack method is obviously easier, but it causes a considerable amount of shrinkage. To do it under tension, the fabric must be stretched tightly so that it does not shrink when you apply the sodium hydroxide. Obviously it is not going to be easy to arrange a setup in which you can take fabric that is stretched on a rack of some sort and submerge it in strong sodium hydroxide. It will require a large volume of the sodium hydroxide. The pH of this stuff is over 14.

Some years ago Olli Niemitalo wrote on the DyersLIST mailing list about his experiments with home mercerization. He was able to do it safely (it probably helped that he's a research scientist), but he concluded that the whole mess was not worth the bother, even though it did improve the intensity of the color after dyeing.

It's really better to just buy your mercerized cotton muslin. It's much easier for the manufacturers to handle the process.

-Paula