Busy weekend. Started off folding and dying 15 birthday tie-dyed t-shirts and my first-ever tie-dyed sundress and as of late Saturday night I have both washers and dryers in my house chugging away on finished projects.
I’m getting a little better at folding and trying to bring more precision into my patterns and dying. For me precision equals fewer colors per shirt and paying much more attention to applying dyes bybeing be careful not to overlap the pattern lines separating “panels".
Another thing I’ve starting to do with my tie-dyes is to pay much closer attention to basic chemistry. Little things make a big difference, specifically my use of small amounts of sodium alginate to lightly thicken the dye medium. Although it’s sunny, here in San Diego now, I’ve found a thickener lets me produce bolder colors such as variations of turquoise, bright yellows and hot pinks.
I inadvertently discovered one drawback to sodium alginate—excessive color bleeding when you lay primaries (such as dark blue) next to yellows.
The other chemical I’m adding to the water I mix dyes with is Urea—a pure form of nitrogen sold in nurseries and orchard supply stores as a fast acting fertilizer. Urea acts as a low level oxidizer on Procion dyes and is also as a wetting agent, (which helps the dyes flow through natural fibers).
Learning the basic tie dying techniques has been a lot of fun. I really enjoy the artistic creativity of this hobby. It’s not particularly expensive and it provides a way for me to give unique birthday gifts to friends and family. And, if the results aren’t professional looking I can always say “ hey it’s just tie-dye and if you don’t like it, use them for colorful dust rags.”
But my friends don’t do that. They wear them, and that makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something. And with that, it’s back to the vats to dye my first “V” and “star patterns, as well as a sundress for my daughter. Now, I just need to find a hand cleaner that gets the dyes of my large paws.—Jim Forbes—02/01/2009.
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