Dyeing 101 - Graidents

I am taking an on-line self paced dyeing class offered at Candied Fabrics to finally really get confident with the Fiber Reactive MX Dyes.

In this class we will be learning how to mix colors from primaries with the big product being permanent reference tables of recipes for colors. I have wanted to do this forever, and while I know I could do it without a class, it is not something I would do without an assignment.

Our first dyeing exercise was to dye gradients. I chose to dye five sets of quarter yard gradients in Deep Yellow, fuchsia red, light red, new black and sky blue. (Dharma Trading Company) With these sets, it will be easier to know how much dye to use when looking for a particular color tint.

My swatches are marked with flagging tape - the same thing I use to label my handspun skeins. I slightly modified Candy's excellent instructions in that I let the fabric batch in plastic bags and poured off any excess dye, after dyeing in a bowl. I started using this technique after I read the book Dyeing To Quilt, and it has worked for me and takes less batching space than Candy's method.

The class has both a written lesson and videos that accompany the web pages. There is also a Q&A with each lesson and Candy is quick to answer any questions that pop up.

The other thing about this class is that you can start it any time and work at your own pace. I am glad to be in the first group though, because the other students help keep me motivated. This is really a lot of work so it definitely needs time set aside to get the full benefit.

Next up is mixing three primaries for sixty six colors.

True Blue Warp

I have a weaving class coming up soon at the Contemporary Handweavers of Texas on Color that Moves. The instructor, Betty Vera, sent out loom warping instructions a couple of weeks ago.

The instructions have seventeen different warping options with many types of fabric. It was really hard to choose which one to weave, but I finally settled on an undilatating twill with several shades of colors in the warp.

When I went shopping to try to find yarn (online of course because the nearest weaving store is 50 miles away), I soon decided that I was not going to be sure that what I bought would be what I had envisioned. The only way I could see to get the color control I wanted was to get out my fiber reactive dyes. I thought I would document the process I used in hope that it will help someone else.

For dyeing yarn with fiber reactive dyes, I have been happiest with a direct application method where the dye concentrate is poured directly on the soda ash soaked fiber, massaged in, then left to cure. I tried a vat method a couple of times and I just was not as happy with the dye process.

Sample Stock  mixtures with paper towel color testers

The best brief write up I have found on this method of direct dyeing is in Weaver's Craft, Issue 15. Jean Scorgie, the author, calls it "Kitchen Dyeing". It is adapted from an out of print book for quilters called Dyeing To Quilt. I was able to snag a used copy of this book from Amazon. My fiber reactive dyes are from Dharma Trading Company. I love their website and fast shipping.

For my class warp, I decided I would dye eight values of Cerulean Blue. I did a test run on some thrums by mixing a small amount of dye, and then diluting it - just to verify I was going to like the colors.

Once I was sure I liked the Cerulean Blue color I had made, I wound two ounce skeins of my yarn, chained and tied itm, soaked it in soda ash solution. I mixed my dye with 4 teaspoons of dye powder to one cup of water. This is a stronger solution than the Weaver's Craft issue calls for - by double, but I wanted my dark blue to be really dark so there would be plenty of contrast as the values got lighter.

Weaver's Craft suggested 1/4 cup of dye solution to one ounce of yarn, and so I mixed 1/2 cup of stock for each of my two ounce skeins.

To do the eight values, I started with 1 cup of the pure stock. I had eight containers. The first container got 1/2 cup of stock for the first skein of yarn. Into the second container, I poured 1/2 cup of the pure stock, then I added 1/2 cup of water - diluting it by half. I poured 1/2 cup of this diluted stock into a third container, and set the other 1/2 cup aside for the second skein of yarn. I contiuned this for all eight skeins. The last container ends up with 1/2 cup of stock that is discarded. Each value has half as much of the pure stock in it as the value that preceeded it.

I dyed strips of paper towels by dipping them in each dye cup. When the dye drys on the towels, the color is pretty close to the actual dyed yarn. This gives me a reference I can file away for later.

I started with the lightest value. I placed the skein in a deep plastic container, then poured the container of stock over it and massaged the dye into the yarn.

In the past I have had problems with light spots in my yarn. To combat those spots, I set a kitchen timer and massaged the yarn in the dye soultion for two full timed minutes, squeezing it out and puting it back in the dye several times. Later I discovered my rubber gloves had a hole in them, so I am still sporting blue finger tips that make my nails appear bruised. Guess I better get those gloves in the trash!

When the two minutes were up, the skeins had all absorbed all of the dye solution, and I placed each one in a zip lock plastic bag.  The two minute massage pretty much eliminated the white spots in the yarn, so I will be doing this every time I dye like this.

Fiber reactive dyes like to be cured in a warm but not hot like an oven place. So, I put all the bags in a plastic box and set that box down inside of a cardboard box that had a heating pad in the bottom, then let them cure for 24 hours.

The next day, I rinsed out the yarn until the water was mostly clear. (If someone knows how to make the rinsing go faster I would love tips). I hung the yarn to dry and now I am winding cones so I can wind my warp.

Finished Skeins of Yarn with Paper Towel Color Swatches

I think this yarn is going to make a pretty warp. I am very excited to see the fabric it makes.

Drop by Drop

For several months, I have been planning a warp for the Summer and Winter Kitchen Towels in the Handwoven E-Book "Top Ten Towels on Four Shafts". In fact since June, five skeins of yarn have been scoured and waiting on the cabinet in my utility room. The time has long since passed to get them off the cabinet.

The thing that has stopped me is the number of colors of yarn that are required. The towels use five different colors of 5/2 cotton plus white. I had exactly one of those colors - white.

When I started weaving, I decided I would try to dye many of the colors called for, since I do not want to add to the large supply of yarn that I have already. The problem is I have no formal art training, so my color mixing knowledge relies heavily on what I learned from finger paints in kindergarten.

For this project, my challenge came in mixing some colors that were close to the colors used in the original pattern - although I am sure other colors would be equally pretty. I really struggled over how to mix some of the colors especially the "California Gold". I had the yellow part down, but was not sure how to get the gold part. I also needed to mix a "Dark Turk" color and a coral color.

From my earlier fiber reactive dye experiments, I learned that the mixed dye solutions can be painted onto watercolor paper, and the dried samples are pretty close to what the actual dyed cloth or yarn will be. Someplace, I also saw that a coffee filter can be substituted for the paper. So, I decided to mix a gradation of the colors between two colors in 9 steps, and try out the coffee filters as a place to preserve my samples.

I used a watercolor mixing palette, and put drops of Deep Yellow in the indentations with an eyedropper. In the first indent, I put one drop, in the second two drops and so forth all around to the last one which got 10 drops. Next, I used Chocolate Brown dye solution and in the indentation with one drop of Deep Yellow, I put 9 drops of Chocolate Brown. The two drops of yellow got 8 drops of brown and so on around. I did not put any brown in the indentation that had the 10 drops of yellow. So each basin had a total of 10 drops of dye, giving a simple formula that can be used to mix larger quantities of that same color.

Next I used a paint brush to paint little samples of each color all around the coffee filter. Now I have a good idea about how to get that California Gold color, or rather my interpretation of it, for the warp for the towels. I also have samples of the colors that can be mixed from these two colors and a rough idea of how to get the color I am aiming for.

I repeated this sampling with the rest of the dye solutions I had mixed up. Now I have lots of color samples to use for a quick reference the next time I dye yarn or fabric.

I dyed the yarn which had been scoured and skeined for three months. It is now curing in my hot water heater closet. I will be rising it in a couple of days, so soon, I will be ready to wind the Summer and Winter Towels Warp. I also dyed some muslin for my She-Knits Autumn Mystery Bag which is felted and waiting for a lining.

This was a fun exercise. It made me think of the art classes I did not get to take. I really do have a lot of colors hiding in a few jars of dye powder.

Colorful Cotton Lint

My friend Peggy gave me 2 pounds of ginned cotton lint last fall to experiment with dyeing. I have not done too much cotton dyeing so every time I do it, I have to wing it a bit. The MX Dyes are not my friend - yet anyway. I was sure that I did not want to spin the undyed lint though. That would be way too boring!

I found instructions for dyeing the lint and also for dyeing cotton sliver at the Cotton Spinning Website.

Joan Ruane runs this site, and she is an expert cotton spinner. She has instructions for dyeing the lint or sliver with both the MX Dyes and also with Natural Dyes on her website and she also has a DVD on how to spin cotton that is available there.

I sort of combined Joan's instructions on dyeing lint with her instructions on dyeing sliver, as I wanted multi-colored lint to spin rather than a solid color.

Here is what I did:

1. Scour the Cotton - put a pot on the burner and fill it about 3/4 full of water. Add a little dish soap. Break up the lint and immerse it in the water, forcing it under. Bring the pot to a simmer and let it simmer for 15-30 minutes or so. A lot of dirt will come out.
2. Rinse the Cotton and squeeze out most of the water.
3. Soak the wet lint in Salt water for 10 minutes - Here I switched to the instructions for dyeing cotton sliver. I used Joan's instructions of 1/2 cup of salt dissolved in one gallon of water and let my lint soak while I mixed my dyes and activator solution.
4. Mix dyes - I used Joan's recommendation of 1/4 tsp of dye powder to about 3/8 cup of water. I mixed the colors I wanted - a green, a purple, turquoise and navy blue in separate bottles.
5. Prepare soda ash solution to activate the dye - I mixed in another container 1/4 cup of soda ash to 3/4 cup of hot water. This should be enough soda ash solution for 6 colors of dye stock, so I was good with my 4 colors
6. Squeeze out wet lint and put it on plastic sheet - at this point I took the wet cotton lint from the salt water solution and squeezed it with my hands until it was fairly dry. I lined my concrete mixing tub (a useful Home Depot or Lowe's item) with a few sheets of newspaper and a large sheet of clear plastic from a partial roll my friend Laurie gave me. A garbage bag or a couple of sheets of saran would work. I then spread out the wet lint on the plastic in the tub.
7. Add activator to dye and apply - One at a time I added 1/8 cup or 1 ounce of activator to each dye. Then I applied that color at random on the lint until it was gone. The activator needs to be added to the dye, then the dye needs to be used quickly. I have read that after 45 minutes, it is technically exhausted or has lost a lot of potency.
8. Wrap the dyed fiber and leave in a warm place for the dye to work - Unlike the acid dyes, the MX dyes work at warm room temperature and do not like to get too hot. It was a fairly cool day so, I put my plexiglass cover on the concrete container with the wrapped dyed fiber and left it in the sun for a couple of hours. Then I left the dyed fiber alone until the next day before I began rinsing.
9. Rinse and rinse and rinse - Here is something that I find frustrating about the MX dyes - all the rinsing required. I have found that the item or yarn or fiber needs about 10 rinses in cool water before the water is semi-clear. I rinsed out the fiber
10. Scour the rinsed fiber and set the color - Next I put the fiber back in the pot of water with some Dawn and brought it up to a simmer for another 30 minutes to set the color.
11. Rinse out the soap, squeeze the fiber out - I had the bright idea to put the dyed lint in my front loader and spin it out. I put it in a mesh bag, but the heavy cotton that was full of water made the machine very unhappy. Next time I do this, I will remember to split it over several bags.
12. Dry the fiber - I put dyed lint in a mesh bag and gave it a dryer cycle which left it pretty wet still. Then, I let it dry over night and gave it another dryer cycle and it was slightly damp, so I put it in a mesh hamper that would let the air get to it and hung it to dry another day.
13. Tease, card and spin - I have started making punis from the fiber. It is going to be so much fun to spin my colored cotton!

Here is my pile of cotton fiber with some of the punis I have made so far. I will probably card all of it before I start spinning.

I am still not as comfortable with the MX dyes as with acid dyes on wool. This session helped some, but I guess I need more practice. Fortunately I have another pound and a half of cotton lint.

Now, I want to get out the bamboo roving I have and try dyeing that!