community of dyers

I am doing samples from Fabric Dyer's Dictionary (the clear blue-violet). I have done the math and decreased the quantities accordingly for smaller batches. I mixed up a cup of water and added 1 T soda ash to soak the thread samples prior to dying. Mixed the dye with urea water. The first time I dyed the samples, the dye did not take fully. I think I did not use enough soda ash or made the dye into a paste to fully dissolve. This time I made my dye paste prior to adding the urea for liquid dye. I put my samples in the dye water. When I took them out and cured fully, they were more of a red-violet than blue-violet.

Hi everyone,

Wondering if anyone has come across this issue. I am creating a set of gradient swatches that combine two primaries, ProChem's mixing blue and ProChem's sun yellow. I want to have sets of swatches at different depths of shade also. I am using low water immersion method, where I let the fabric sit with dye and water only for about 15 minutes, then add soda ash solution and then batch or microwave.

At a dos of 4%, a swatch that is 75% blue and 25% yellow is a blue green. When I use the same proportions of dyes but change the depth of shade to a lower depth of shade, like 2%, 1% or lower, the hue is completely different. I can only see blue in the paler swatches.

How can I determine if "enough" of excess dye is washed out of a project?

Just tried Dharma 11X60 and 12X72 fringed silk rayon velvet scarves in LWI. Used 2tsp/cup of Dharma violet (1 cup), 2tsp/cup orange MX-2R (2 cups) and 1tsp/cup of violet MX-2R (1/2 cup). Smaller scarf was in a 1L pyrex beaker; the larger was in a 2L pyrex beaker. Waited an hour. Activated w/soda ash solution; waited 10 hrs for my convenience ;-), then microwaved for several minutes pausing every minute. Waited another 12 hours for convenience.

Scarves look beautifully mottled but after dozens of hand rinsings in cold, then hot water, much dye is still washing out. Ran through the washing machine double bagged in lingerie bags, on hot and w/ synthrapol, and dried on a rack. I want to give these as gifts but am worried that there may be so much dye left that it will transfer onto the wearer's clothes.

I've been doing LWI with bamboo socks for awhile (from Dharma). After the final hot wash (but my washing machine is not set to super hot - maybe just hot enough) the elastic around the top seems to get tugged out of place or pulled. There's often a little tiny loop of elastic sticking out of the top of the socks somewhere. I wondered if anyone else has had such a problem or has any insight into this.

Many thanks

I have been LWI dyeing fabric and I was wondering what the pros and cons are to presoaking the fabric in a Soda Ash solution, like I do with tie dye as opposed to adding a soda ash solution over the top are. This last piece I did (while having a massive case of 4 year old jumping up and down screaming "mommy!" over and over again) I was on auto-pilot and prepped like I was tie dyeing rather than LWI. It is outside processing right now and Im wondering if it will come out at all!

Hi all,
I've been working on LWI dyeing my baby's prefolds cloth diapers, and I'm not having the best luck. First, I tried to use up som Jaquard iDye, but just ended up with purpley browny mess :(
Then, once I started using procion, I wasn't sure how to go about fixing it withou loosing my great bright swirly LWI effect. I did a soda ash bath like I do when I do ombré, but it really washed the colors out. Suggestions?

Hello. Im just starting dying with procion mx dyes. The problem is I keep getting these whiter areas in the fabric. Im using light yellow ( im doing it by putting less dye powder and more water so its not such a bright colour) , I love the colour but I can get it to be solid colour in all the fabric, is this because im not using enough dye , putting a lot of water or maibe not using enough soda ash? I've tried dying with brighter colours, and putting more dye and soda ash, but I still get there whiter areas...please help =(

Greetings from a new person,

Both to dyeing as a "serious" pursuit and to this group.

I'm deeply impressed with Paula's knowledge, ability to lucidly explain, and willingness to put so much energy into doing all this writing.

I've learned so much from reading through her technical articles that I think I can critically read the book I just bought on "tray dyeing" with greater knowledge of the chemistry involved than the very nice, very experienced ladies who wrote the book.

For instance, they swear by the benefits of adding salt to their dyes, but I note that they start with fabric soaked in soda ash solution and put their salt-dye solution together with WARM water. So if I understand Paula correctly, the temperature starts the clock ticking on the dye's expenditure, while the salt slows it down. So if I just start with fabric at it's native ph, add dye solutions (free of salt, at room temperature or warmish) and let them do their stuff for a while, I can add the soda ash solution AFTER the dye has had a chance to penetrate deep into the fabric. Then (since my projects are very small) I can make the whole thing warm in the microwave and accelerate the process that way, knowing the dye will have been grabbed by the fabric and not spent in the water. So the retarding action of the salt is unnecessary.

I am having difficulty replicating a hue and value that I obtained on a small 8 g swatch of cotton fabric. I have a lot of experience replicating hues and values when doing immersion dyeing with batiks and weigh my fiber, water and dye solution to that end. But, this time, I am am trying to replicate a small swatch that I dyed using low water immersion. My LWI swatch weighs 8 g; I used 6 mL of a 10% dye stock solution; and the total volume of liquor weighed 500 mL.

How do I upscale this to several yards of fabric weighing 500g? Using the depth of shade for this swatch doesn't work, as I've already discovered. The yardage came out extremely dark, probably because my fiber to water ratio for the 500g was much lower than the liquor ratio for my swatch, so the dye was extremely concentrated. I don't have a large enough container to replicate the fiber to water ratio of my swatch of 1:60. Plus, I feel like this is probably a huge waste of dye, and there must be a way to achieve the same value using a low water ratio.

I recently bought a dozen white small cotton canvas tote bags at Michaels (have to do the burn test to really make sure they are cotton)for our Daisy Scout troop.

I want to dye them and then have the girls add embellishments. I like LWI, but am not sure how that technique would work with such a stiff fabric. As there are only 12 bags, I could also consider a spiral tie-dye, but again I've not worked with stiff fabric. I've only worked with cotton jersey.

Any helpful suggestions? Thanks.

I am a new person to the forum and also a beginner - really, really green!

I decided to get into dyeing when I was trying to learn tie dye and stumbled upon the Dharma site. A couple of hundred dollars later (LOL) I have decided that I like the low immersion dyeing where you sprinkle the dye on wet fabric and add soda ash after. I tried my first piece and I like the colors, but I didn't exactly get the result I was after.

I sprinkled dye on the wet fabric and then added soda ash water. Then I sprinkled a couple more colors of dry dye on the wet fabric and added more soda ash water. Flipped the piece and repeated, including the part where you drain off the dye water that has collected at the bottom of the container. Let it sit for 24 hours and rinsed and washed in Synthrpol, etc.

hi folks - new to this site, have learned a lot already. Just did some LWI with my best results (to date), from Paula's excellent instructions. Attached are a couple examples. I'm generally pleased with it so far, but would like to make the crackle design a bit more distinct. I'm wondering if maybe I should use salt and/or maybe a dye thickener to slow its spread just a bit? Or maybe add the soda ash sooner? or less dye? Gaaaaaah! so many variables!!
For these examples, I started with dry fabric, and used several rubber bands to crunch the fabric together. I let the dye sit on the fabric for 10-15 minutes before adding fixer. No salt was used, no urea, no thickener. Suggestions much appreciated!

This is the first time that I have done LWI and I am very pleased with what came out. Not sure If I did this one right or not just kinda winged it.

How I made this. First I pushed the item into a coffee can. Then add some fuchsia dye water (Just dye water). Then I add some water. Then some yellow dye water. Then some more water. Repeating the same thing over and over till I felt it was good enough.

Please feel free to give me any pointers or tips on LWI.

Ty:RFTD

Hi
I watched TieDyeJudy's video about LWI on rope shibori. She used three colours, squished them in and then added the soda ash fixative solution after. She batched the dyed material one hour before adding the fixative, and then let it set for an hour before washout. This is a very simple description of her presentation (very informative, thanks Judy) but it left me wondering why only one hour batching time before washout. Is there some reason for such a reduced batching time?
Thanks
Bob

I'm pretty new to dying and I'd like to do this w/ a white shirt I have. I don't want the colors to muddy each other. Recs for the best method to achieve this pattern?
Thanks!!

I use LWI and add the activator after a period of time. But I'm going to do a whole skirt in one color and was wondering if I could add the activator before I add the skirt? There will be some tyes in the skirt as well, so I don't want too much saturation in those area of course.
Any help is greatly appreciated!!

Hi all! I am new here so this will be my first post. I have been dyeing for a while, lwi and acid dyeing yarn mostly. I love it!

I tried my hand at lwi dyeing some organic bamboo velour blankets and pillow cases for my little boys. I am pretty happy with how they have turned out.

I've read a good deal about LWI and done considerable LWI dyeing to develop my color formulas. I'm very confused about how the weight of the fabric and the amount of dye relate. Specifically, if I make two batches, use the same type and amount of fabric and the same amount of dye but double the amount of water in one bath, what happens? Will fabric and dye being equal result in same color and shade, or will dilution make the color lighter? Or should I just experiment? :o)

Thanks again, Paula, for sharing your knowledge.

Hi,

I need a little help figuring out what I need, what I can do, etc., please.

Ms. Burch was so kind a few months ago to suggest LWI dyeing might be the way for me to go as I've mod-severe rheumatoid arthritis and can't do anything extensive with my hands, incl. wringing things out. Finally I'm ready/able to buy dress blanks and dye, only I'm *so* lost, lol, it's too true. Maybe making things worse (?) I've seen pics of tie-dyed skirts and I love their effects...but are they possible, even something close, in LWI? And if so, what supplies would I need (incl. any books?) (I'll be buying my dress blanks from Dharma, as sewing my own dresses isn't possible for me.) I *love* watery color gradations and their interactions--like the elements swirling together (see pics attatched.)

I'm working with a friend to create several pieces of fabric for a quilt. She wants them graded from medium blue thru green to bright yellow. Last weekend we did our first attempt, and while we got good colors, the values did not change. i.e., they were all pretty much the same color intensity. Yesterday, I tried Ann Johnston's 'Value Parfait' technique using one color, and got the gradation from dark to light. But my friend and I are struggling with how to get value changes as well as color changes when we get to the green area of her color spread. If anyone has done gradation dyeing has any suggestions on how to develop the proper dye to water ratio, I would appreciate hearing from you, either in the forum, or offline. We are going to try again next Sunday, so I am hoping we can get some suggestions before then.