community of dyers

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.

When you do the low immersion dyeing useing small bags or containers, how do you add more colors? How much, what intensity, and when? Do I dry the fabric after the first color? Also I read that you add the soda ash solution after the dye? being new at this I am a bit confused.

How long do you soak the fabric in soda ash? pre-dye and how long afterward? I am using Dylon Multi purpose dyes. I have the Dylon Cold water as well, but will not mix them!

Alma Lou Annab
Amman, Jordan

(sorry Paula, I should have posted that note here, but don't know how to move it)

I've almost always done LWI a certain way... I start with damp fabric, pour dye over, and then add water to make it flow if needed. If I don't add water, I let it sit longer... sometimes I use a LOT of dye. I've actually done multiple shirts in one bucket this way... pouring dye on each shirt as I layered them in. Sometimes salting shirts... trying to go for that salt effect.

When I think the dye has traveled enough, I pour in a standard or maybe a bit stronger mixture of soda ash and water. I put in enough to well cover the fabric, and then weight down with another bucket and some water. (or another bucket of stuff dyed, and I can end up with little towers of dye buckets, lol)

I've been doing low-water immersion dyeing with fiber reactive dyes and bamboo and cotton fabrics. I usually cram the fabric into a small container and then pour the dye over the top. But sometimes the dye liquid doesn't get down to the bottom- I have some clear containers which are very helpful. I don't want the whole bottom part to remain natural. So, I shoved a plastic knife down the side to get some dye down there. I'm not sure what the result was because I got my projects mixed up. But it probably resulted in the colors combining more. So, my question is, what should i do to get the dye to penetrate all the way down? I tried pouring water over, but that didn't seem to do anything.

Hello,

I have recently moved from Asia to the USA. I brought some wonderful textiles from India, Thailand, and Cambodia that are woven with purples in one direction and oranges in the other, so they sort of shimmer in shades of purple, orange, and pinks. They are marvellous fabrics and colors.

Anyway, what do you put with that in the bedroom? The fabrics I have are good for scarves on the tops of dressers and end tables, or maybe wall hangings, and I also have some throw pillows.

I bought an old white bedspread at goodwill. It feels like 100% cotton. It was only $4 so if it doesn't work out I am not crushed. I am thinking about dying it using Procion dye with the low water immersion process in a trash can lined with a plastic trash bag. I would like to use purple and orange dyes. I thought about putting the orange in the bottom, adding the spread, and then pouring the purple on top, and then after a while adding the soda etc according to the process described on this website. It would be nice if pinks came out at the place where the orange and purple joined, or if they kept their own intensity, but browns or muddy colors would be not so cool.

I think I am going to have a nice dark brown polo shirt!

This is what happens when you try and follow directions. I took a recipe out of the "Color By Accident" book for a gold to rust "one layer many colors". My rust turned out to be very brown and the gold yellow with splotches of brown. The brown is very dark so you can't see any variation in the dye level ( I think the recipe for the rust was 3 Tbls orange, 1 tsp blue and .5 tsp red and for the gold I used 2 Tbls Yellow an a little bit of black water, it turned out ok but had unattractive blotches of the other colors). I am going to try and overdye it a dark red so I can get a red/orange to brown color, and then will dye it all brown when that doesn't work.

How do you mix sun yellow powder in make a dye solution

I am using 5 yds of Ron Lon unbleached muslin, washed and scoured carefully
I want to make a light, med, and dark solution in 2 cups of urea water.
I will use the low water immersion dyeing.

I am a beginner hand dyer.

I was told you need twice a much dye when using sun yellow with intense blue and fuschia.

If you need more information, please let me know. Jodie

I dyed using PRO Midnight Blue and PRO Strongest Red and did gradations using fat quarters. All went well. Thinking that the leftover liquid might still have enough dye in it, I later put in new fabric; let it sit without soda ash for 24 hours; since it seemed to yield pale colours, I then added some other leftover dye solution, added the soda ash some minutes later, let it be for 24 hours, rinsed and looked at some intense, deep, dark colours. I thought all went well. As I now took it out of the washer, turns out that the colour from the first application is completely absent!

Is this due to the fact that I did not add the requisite soda ash until much later, near the time I added the 2nd colour?

After a week of practicing lwi, I am back with a question. I prepared a solution using yellow and a touch of black; I chose a black that goes to green. Used in the light-medium strength, I obtained the green I wanted; when used a tad darker, though, I got colors that split and basically look like army fatigues with some reddish splotches/areas. Why does the black show itself separately rather than just give me a darker shade of the green? I know there are endless variables at play but, in general, can you figure out why this happens [to me]? Thank you so much.

Using 3t of blue plus 1t of black, I dyed by lwi 5 different pieces of cotton sateen. This fabric, when purchased, had been treated but I have scoured it a few times. In any event, is this amount of dye not enough to yield dark colour? I was supposed to get a more pronounced gradation, or so I thought, but it goes from light to medium blue; the two pieces to which I gave the most dye seem to have suffered from some color separation -the black, I take it?-. Is this amount of dye not enough to yield a dark, intense colour or is the pretreated, though scoured, fabric messing with me? Thanks,

Fulvia

I am following Paula's LWI's instructions; my house, however, is at 65 degrees Fahrenheit maximum. Should I microwave to raise the temperature or not? The fabric has been batching for hours already; is it too late?
Many thanks,
Fulvia
www.fulviastudio.com

These are some bamboo rayon socks that I dyed with low water immersion using Remazol and Procion MX dyes. The socks on the left contain Remazol dye, mixtures of ProChem's liquid reactive mixing red, intense blue, and a little turquoise, while the socks on the right contain Procion type violet MX-2R (the dye commonly misnamed as violet MX-G), rubine MX-B (Grateful Dye's #14 Cherry), and orange MX-2R.

These are my favorite socks for dyeing at this time, the bamboo rayon socks

Hi, I'm brand new here. I've only done a couple of single dye simple projects with Dylon dyes in the past. I'm really intrigued by the LWI process (and pictures of the results!) Since I already have some Dylon permanent fabric dye packets left, I was wondering if I could use those for a single color LWI project on a babywearing wrap (that is already dyed pink)? I would appreciate any comments, pros/cons of doing so. Thank you!

I am new here and looking forward to getting to know all of you. The amount of information to wade through in the forum is staggering so I know it will take a while.

In the meantime, I have a quick question about Paula's page on LWI. After reading through the page, I understand that urea is not used but I am not sure if the fabric stuffed into the container is wet or dry.

Also, while doing some reading on the Web (and a brain fart leaves me wondering exactly where) I read about a dyer that treats the fabric with Soda Ash BEFORE the dyeing whereas I thought the Soda Ash was always added after the dyeing as a fixative. Why would you add the Soda Ash at the beginning? Does it help the color to disperse more evenly?

Hi. I've been experimenting with MX dyes on cotton and silk, in the past I've have only used acid dyes on wool and silk, so the MX was an interesting education! I followed Paulas instructions on low water immersion technique, plus her suggestions on using less soda ash, as I didn't want to spoil the silk fabric, (or make a hot water bath using acid.) I am thrilled with the results, and it was a lot easier than I expected. I've posted my pics on Flickr

I have been doing large batches (6-8 pieces) of LWI recently, and it occurred to me that I might need to adjust the quantity of soda ash solution I add to the batch. Is there a limit to how many items a cup of soda ash solution will handle? If so, how do I determine the right quantity of liquid to add? Currently, I am using 1 tsp of soda ash per cup of dye water, plus 1 for the liquid I dissolve it in.

Judy

I was wondering if there is a guide to the amount of liquid used in LWI dyeing based on weight of goods?

I'm dyeing knitting yarn & am pretty comfortable with acid dyeing but haven't had much experience with the fiber reactive dyes yet.

When I LWI dye with wool I use around 300ml of liquid to 50g of yarn but that seems to be way too much liquid for the cotton yarn as I'm getting fairly even colour throughout.

Thanks
Katie

Last week we were astonished to get a birth announcement from good friends who live in another city. This little rainbow of snap-crotch baby shirts is what we're sending them:

All were dyed with Vinyl Sulfone Fiber Reactive Dyes, also known as Remazol dyes; the brand I was using was Jacquard Red Label Silk Colors. The baby shirts are 100% cotton and not marked as stain resistant (I always have to check, now!). Three were dyed with low water immersion in one-cup containers, and the other thrown into larger LWI dyebaths. I rubber-banded the latter two, so they are tie-dyed as well as low water immersion dyed. I used hot tap water for dyeing, with trisodium phosphate instead of soda ash, and left the dyebaths for about three hours. The smaller cups looked likely to cool quickly, so I rested them in a pan containing several inches of hot tap water.

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