Dying Cotton and Wool

Hello Everyone!
Wow, this week flew.  We lost our phone service and had no 911 for a while either.  We were living in the olden days.  What was nice about it is that I had no phone the night before and almost the entire election day.  Glad that's over...

So to dying.  I dyed some cotton t shirts for Cross County State Champs competion a couple of weekends ago.

The white shirt in the middle is what we started with.  I hate wearing white and my husband can't wear white as dirt finds him any where.  Our son, in the middle, was the one going to state, and can wear white without issue.  I dyed mine using the Jacquard's fiber reactive dyes.  I put the dye in some water in a large stainless steel pot.  I added the salt as directed on the back of the jar and later the washing soda.  The worst part of it is the stirring.  20 minutes constantly sat first.  Then I did every 10 minutes for about an hour to set the color.  Then into the washer it went.

The gray one I used Rit dye.  It works much the same way as the Jacquard's, except without adding anything other than water.  The stirring is for an entire hour though.  I made my hubby do that, it was his shirt after all.  Then it went into the washer with the purple shirt and then had a rinse in cold water.  I did dry them in the dryer as we had to wear them the next morning.  Dying cotton is fun and easy, it just takes more baby sitting than I like.  The sew threads in the shirt are made something else, probably nylon or rayon and didn't take the dye, so they are still white.

Remember safety, do NOT use the same tools for dying and for cooking.  You MUST use a different set for dying.

I also recently dyed some super wash wool yarn for a friends Christmas mitts.
Last year my BFF asked me to dye some yarn and make him some fingerless gloves that were the same color as a sweater I had knit many years ago.  I dug and dug and dug and couldn't find my notes on the dye recipe.  I finally found the names of the colors I used and started there.
I did 4 different samples and made notes of each.  I chose a sample for the gloves and dyed the yarn and made them.  When it came time for these mitts, a year later, I knew her favorite color was purple...  I had kept the samples and my notes!  This means that I can recreate any of these 4 colors!  I chose a color recipe and went to town.

I then wet out the fiber.  While it was soaking in the jar, I got out my dye solutions.

I discovered I was out of one color and needed to mix some more.  I make 1% solutions by mixing 5g of dye powder into 500mL of boiling water.  I use the metric system when dying because it makes calculating and replicating easier and faster.

I then mixed my dyes in another jar and added 60mL of vinegar.

I then poured the water in the yarn jar into the dye jar.  I didn't have to worry about felting because this is a superwash wool.  If it were a fine fiber such as yak or even alpaca I would have removed the yarn from the jar before pouring and not taken any chances.

I then put the yarn into the water and shoved it down.  The white near the center of the picture is the yarn in the dye jar.  If I had needed more water to cover the yarn I would have slowly added to it.
From here I have 3 choices for setting the dye.  Place the jar in a pot of water on the stove and slowly heating about 180F.  My favorite method is solar dying.  I would place a lid on this jar and put it outside first thing the morning where the sun will be for most of the day, but only if the weather were going to be 80F or warmer.  The way I set this particular jar of dye was the microwave.  For a jar this large, 32oz, I did 3 minutes heating, 3 minutes waiting, 3 times for a total of 9 minutes heating.  I then leave it to cool in the microwave for about 4-6 hours, or over night.

After leaving the dye to sit and cool until after I picked up the children from school, I removed the yarn from the jar and rinsed it with water of the same temperature. Again because this is super-wash wool I could just run it under the running tap. If it were almost any other fiber I would have filled another vessel with water and carefully swished it in there.

Unless you have used an excessive amount of dye, or used either a blue or fuchsia, then the water in the dye vessel should be clear and the yarn rinse clear rather quickly. Blue and fuchsia don't always exhaust well, be it Kool-Aid or an acid dye company.

Most acid dyes are safe enough to go down the drain, but check the label first! I pour both my Kool-Aid and Jacquard's down the drain. We live on a septic tank and have had no problems with me doing this over the last 6 years.

I store my 1% solutions in Zip-Lock bowls, on a shelf in my basement dye studio. There is no heat in there and the bowls are stores on against a foundation wall. I moved many of them here with me 6 years ago and they still dye and set like they did when I first mixed them.

Store dyes out of reach of children and pets. There is even an MSDS available for some dyes and that should be posted if you have those dyes. In this picture you can see my bowls stacked up in the back, my jars of powders in the front and the color chart to the left. This shelf is eye level to me at 5' 8" and is made out of metal. You will want the dyes on a shelf with few or no holes and made of an easy to clean surface such as metal or melamine.

If a spill does occur as seen in the photo here...

It is easy to clean up. Soak up as much dye as you can using a paper towel, do not wipe. Then using a cleaning rag, baking soda and hot water, scrub off the remaining dye

This will also work if you get any on your hands and you didn't wear gloves.

The safety directions tell you to wear gloves for a reason. These are acid dyes to be used on protein fibers and therefore will stick to protein. What are we? Protein. I personally don't wear gloves as I don't dye daily. If your exposure is higher because you dye often wear gloves, save your self. Also be sure to follow any other safety precautions listed on the jar or company website.

If the safety precautions and directions are followed it can be great fun to dye. If you want to be able to reproduce your results keep good notes.

When I make a color sample I used 1g of yarn and measure in drops. When working with 1% solutions, I use 1mL of dye to 1g of fiber. More for a more intense color and less for a paler color. 1mL has about 24 drops in it. I use a dropper that holds 1mL and get drops from it. It is slow and tedious but I was able to replicate my results. For example for this purple I needed 16 drops of one color and 8 drops of the other color. I was dying 100g of yarn so I multiplied each of those numbers by 100. That told me how many drops I needed of each color. That would take simply forever so I then divided that number by 24 and that result is the number of mL I needed of each color. Much better.

In my next post about dying I will walk through making a color sample spectrum and the measuring tools I use for dying.

Next week will be about Glory's First Doll. Until then fiber on.