I had a piece of fabric that had been dyed by someone else. The color was a dull burgundy with a purple cast.
I overdyed it with black. I am pleased with the results.
BUT-The colors had not been set properly.
Some of the red component in the dye ran a little on my other fabric where it was supposed to be white.
Another lesson learned…….Don’t trust any hand dyed fabrics you purchase….the colors could run…….both in another dye pot or in the project you create.
I will be doing a proper washout on all the fabrics I bought from this particular seller/dyers.
One of the keys to a proper washout is soaking in cold water to remove all the soda ash.
The other important one is to wash in HOT HOT water.
The water temperature on my washer can be set as high as 205 degrees F.
After I have done the complete washout with Synthrapol I do one more rinse and add a Color Catcher sheet to that rinse.
If there is any color on the Color Catcher sheet, I do a second HOT wash.
This is the second dyer I have found whose work runs a lot.
Before I started dyeing fanatically I bought a lot of hand dyes from other dyers. I am now overdyeing many of those boring pieces!
5 comments:
It was surely a hassle, dealing with another dyers inattention to the big deal of removing all the excess dye.....BUT....it was surely worth the effort... A GREAT piece.
Kay - I received some fabric in an ugly-(and you'd better improve it)-exchange. It came from a dyer who knows proper washing out techniques, but it ran. There are two reasons I can think of - one, it went on her ugly pile without a final hot wash (but it was ironed.) The other is that my water is different, which is what I blame. Are there dyers out there who don't get their water hotter than 140 F? Afraid so, but water does make a difference.
I love how you improve the dull and ugly. Thanks for the info on care of hand dyeds
My favorite hand dyes are those that have been dyed twice. The second dye adds so much depth to the piece.
so like a butterfly wing close up. a Lovely save!
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