Name: Angela

Message: Hi,
I apologize, I know you probably get tons of mail, but I am desperate and it looks like if anybody can help it would be you. 

I make diaper covers from felted wool interlock for cloth diapered babies. I have been washing machine dying using Jacquard acid dyes. Some customers are experiencing bleeding. When I inquired with Jacquard they said I cannot washing machine dye, I need to reach 200 degrees. So... I've been LWI dying in the microwave. It's not going well. I get dye freckles (although I've learned a lot about that here tonight) and it's too time consuming. I use a lot of yardage. I go through about 50 yards prefelting per month. 

So my basic question is if there is an efficient way to washing machine dye wool yardage. I want some felting but also don't want to over do it with long, extra hot agitation. Is acid dye not the way to go if I cannot acieve that temperature? I need a realistic way to dye 10-15 yards a week. Or maybe I need an efficient (home friendly) way to fix the dye to be more colorfast after the garment is constructed?

If washfastness on wool is very important to you, then I strongly recommend that you try an entirely different group of dye which is far more washfast than the line of acid dyes that you have been using. The most washfast dyes for wool that are suitable for home use are the Lanaset dyes. If you look at washfastness figures for dyes, you will see that acid dyes are tested with wash water that is not at all hot, at 105°F, but Lanaset dyes are tested at 140°F, which is hotter than many people's washing machines even get. A dye that does not wash out in hot water is obviously much better than one which does not wash out in lukewarm water!

The washfastness of the different colors of Jacquard Acid Dyes are highly variable. Some of the acid dyes perform better than others. Some of them are actually acid leveling dyes, which are a type of dye that is noted for not being at all washfast. Look at Jacquard's excellent table about their acid dyes to see the range in wash fastness between the different dyes (when tested by washing at 105°F). The dyes which are listed with a "5" are very washfast in cool water, but the ones listed as a 1 or a 2, such as Sapphire Blue or Violet, are extremely poor at surviving washing. Just sticking to the dyes that are listed as more washfast on this table would go a long way toward improving your situation. Even the best dyes on that particular chart are far less washfast than the Lanaset dyes, however.

The one drawback to Lanaset dyes is that they are expensive, but you do not need to use nearly as much dye in order to get a comparable dye color, so it's worth it. They are also particularly beautiful, rich dyes. Lanaset Jet Black is the only black dye I recommend for use on wool, because it is so superior to alternative black dyes, but the other colors are much appreciated by dyers, as well. I believe that people would be more interested in buying your diaper covers if they are more resistant to fading in the laundry than other diaper covers. Be sure to talk this up in your labeling or advertising.

You can mail-order Lanaset dyes from a number of different suppliers. Try a web search. For more information on Lanaset dyes, see my pages, Lanaset Dyes: A Range of Reactive and Acid Dyes for Protein Fibers and Which Lanaset dye colors are pure, rather than mixtures?.

The one big drawback to Lanaset dyes is that I would not use them in the washing machine. Then again, as you saw, there are issues with using acid dyes in the washing machine. The 140°F limit on most home water heaters is a major problem for getting the best bond between acid dye and fabric. You're really much better off at dyeing temperatures closer to simmering.

Using the microwave is easy, but it's not giving you the results you need. I recommend that you start using the stovetop instead. For solid colors, you can get excellent results if you buy an enormous non-aluminum cooking pot and simmer your fabric in the dye at the temperature recommended in a good reliable recipe. For rainbow designs and hand-painted designs, you will want to steam-set your designs, instead. You can do this with acid dyes or with Lanaset dyes. The recipe for rainbow dyeing with Lanaset dyes that is given by PRO Chemical & Dye is good. First presoak your wool in vinegar water, then paint on your designs as you please, having laid out your cover on a sheet of plastic wrap. When you have done painting, wrap the cover up in the plastic wrap, still quite wet with the dye, and steam it, with the lid on, above boiling water, for half an hour, just as you would steam a vegetable. The results are much more reliable than you can get in the microwave, since the pattern in which the energy reaches the inside of the microwave is inevitably uneven, unless you use a microwave steamer so that steam is evenly distributed throughout your fabric. Look at ProChem's instructions for this method of steaming.

You can also buy large steamers which are intended mainly for dyeing hand-painted silk yardage. These are a significant investment but might eventually be worth your while since you are going through so much fabric. Look at the following pages at Dharma Trading Company: Building Your Own Stovetop Silk Steamer, Stove Top Steamer, and The Vertical Electric Steamer.

One final point: although they would solve your problem with bleeding dyes, I do not recommend the use of cationic dye fixatives such as Retayne for use on baby clothes.

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