community of dyers

Everything I've tried with this forum so far this morning, including adding a new user, is working fine this morning. Finally!

-Paula

This forum seems to be working fine, except that I cannot access the admin side to add new users. It looks like the earlier repairs have not been complete. I am going to have to contact the site hosting service and ask them to fix it again.

The host for this site had a disk crash starting around 3 this morning (US Central Time), after which I had to clean up a couple of database tables for the program that runs this forum. It was up and running again by 7 am.

Paula

I have some of these metallic pigments from Dharma:

http://www.dharmatrading.com/html/eng/1932-AA.shtml

The description says "Pearl Ex Powdered Pigments are very fine powdered mica pigments that are non-toxic, inert, and can be mixed into virtually any viscous, transparent medium and applied to any surface!"

Well ... it appears they can be mixed into Procion dye, but they just wash right out of the fabric again. Is there an easy way to make them stick? Do I need some kind of clear fabric paint to apply them? Or am I missing some way to make them work with dye?

I was guessing it mi

I want to thank Paula Birch and all of you for allowing me to visit your online community which I stumbled over when trying to gather information of a type of commercial knitting yarn I'm trying to identify. You all seem to know an awful lot about fibers. Will you help me? This is a 100% cotton yarn used for pique knit shirts. At one time, Lands End, LLBean and Eddie Bauer all used this wonderful yarn in their pique polos. The three of these companies together supply a large percentage of the casual clothing worn in the U.S. One by one, Lands End first, then LLBean and lastly Eddie Bauer flickered out on this yarn and began using fuzzy yarns that interfere with the breathable structure of pique knit.

I have a cotton sari that I hoped to sew into an outfit. It's an electric blue with pale gray embroidery. I washed it on "gentle". On taking it out of the dryer and untangling it -- yes, you guessed it, my hands are now bright blue. It's not dyefast.

I don't want to make a summer outfit out of fabric that will turn me blue, obviously. Do you think it's worth trying Retayne on it? Since I didn't dye it myself, I have no idea what the initial dye process was like, nor can I even be 100% sure it is cotton.

So a couple years ago I bought a bunch of white chainette fringe. It was billed as "rayon." I tried dyeing it with soda ash and Procion MX... and got pale pastels. Clearly it wasn't 100% rayon. But I have no idea what else might be in it.

I was thinking about throwing pieces of it in some various dye baths just to see what might happen. I put this off since it seemed so haphazard.

But now with the advent of iDYE... I was thinking of getting packets of iDYE and iDYE Poly in similar colors and throwing them both in the pot together. Seems like this would cover all the bases and I might actually get some non-pastel fringe.

Its impressive to call my work area my "studio" - but who am I kidding - until I build my house, its the bathtub for now. I just had to clean out a bathtub that had about 6 months of dye caked to it. Why does the dye seep into the porcelain? its not fabric! I really dont understand it, and whats worse - its almost IMPOSSIBLE to get it off unless you kill yourself scrubbing with a steel wool brillow pad (good workout by the way). Whats even weirder part is that the dye actually STAINED the plastic toilet seat cover. Why does the dye do this???

and if anyone has any great ideas on how to get all this gunk off, PLEASE let me know - after hours of scrubbing, the bathtub still has this very gentle shade of blue to it.

Here are some couch slipcovers on other sites I've been enjoying looking at lately, triggered by a discussion on the DyersLIST mailing list (each picture links to the source page)....

Rosalind's solid blue Ikea couch (posted on the DyersList mailing list):

Amethistle's swirl tie-dye couch and tie-dyed loveseat:

Has anyone else noticed all the spring clothes coming out with gradients of color - Sears is selling clothes that go from light green to dark green, for example? I'd like to try something like that. I assume the best way would be to mix up pails of dye of three different intensities, then dip the clothes. Do I wait until the first (lightest) color is dry before I dip it in the next (darker) intensity, or do I do it right away? And how do I minimize the amount of dye I will need to mix up - are there tall, narrow one way, wide the other way containers I could use?

I'm testing to see whether a new (to this forum) feature that allows files to be attached will work. When you make a post, you will see an option to attach a file at the bottom. It seems to be very easy to use.

Warning: You must remember to click on the "attach" button before you submit your post!

To see the attachment for any post, you must click on the title line of the post, or on "read more...." link below if there is one; it's not showing up on the main page here.

(My test picture is off-topic, just a picture from my garden.)

Paula

It's odd, but this site shows a strong seasonality to its use. Every year, there is a big peak in July and then again, surprisingly, a smaller peak in October, then traffic declines through December. Christmas Day, December 25, is always the lowest-traffic day, then traffic increases pretty steadily until July again. Each month always shows more traffic than the same month a year before, of course. Here are some graphs showing the seasonality of traffic here....

Found on Phatdyes site

[I edited to add the links. I hope that's okay. -Paula]

I've found this picture on the Flickr, that might be interesting for all tie-dyers.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7714798@N04/455909077/

Photo taken at Woodstock 69

I need to get new drapes in my living room, and curtains in a bedroom. I hate all the boring synthetic dry-clean-only fabrics I've seen in catalogs. Maybe I should just give up and buy wide fabrics from Dharma and dye them myself. I even have some gorgeous fabric I could use for the bedroom curtains. The living room drapes are intimidating me, though. I want them to be pinch-pleated at the top, made of some non-synthetic-looking material.

How would you go about making drapes? How do you make pinch pleats? What kind of fabric do you think would be best? I'd like them to last a long time!

Just wondering...

I think soda ash is not good for wool, right? Besides, I'd be worried about felting in all the hot rinses. Acid dye probably won't work very well (it's 50% cotton). Any other options for a safe and wash-fast dye job?

hi all
can anyone tell me the machines required to dye polyester spun thread 2/40, 2/60 (sewing thread)

give me some info
thanks

I was just reading Jane Dunnewold's blog -- she is in Austrailia right now, teaching various surface design classes. She was talking about how that area is in the midst of a serious drought, and she is experimenting in her classes with even lower water immersion techniques to conserve. That made me wonder about whether it is safe to dispose of dye baths by using to water plants? Does anyone do this? I would love to hear from you if you do, as to what the outcome has been.
Thanks!

Judy

I have a shirt that I'd like to dye. It is made of 70% cotton, 25% nylon and 5% spandex. I plan to dye a large area of it. I've read through the website, and I'm thinking that since the shirt is made up mainly of cotton, I'll be able to dye it without the need to worry about nylon or spandex.

I want to check to see if that is possible without any damage, and if it is possible for the color to be even.

Thank you.

I've been using Calgon water softener (ala the Tie Dye 101 video), but purchased a large quantity of sodium hexametaphosphate, since I'm gearing up my volume.

I thought they were the same thing, but since Calgon says it contains no phophates, I don't see how they can be.

Is one better than the other? Are they used in the same amounts? The Calgon box says to use twice as much per wash load as the video recommends for the hexametaphos.