I treid my hand at dyeing fabric for the very first time today. It was a very nerve wracking process. I wanted the wool I bought from Homecraft Textiles to be green, so I can have a cloak which is purple on the outside and green on the inside, since they are my heraldic colours.
Materials:
Blue-ish coloured wool, a packet of dye and some vinegar! IDye is a popular brand here in Aneala, I've heard good things about it, so I thought I may as well give it a try. The outside of the packet makes it all seem so simple, so I got a bit of a shock when I opened the packet and found a whole bunch of detailed instructions for different methods. There's two different kinds of iDye, one group for natural fabrics, and one for polyester. I had no idea what sort of blend my wool is, but it felt like mostly wool so I thought I'd just get the natural dye and if there was some poly in there that didn't take the dye it wouldn't really matter because most of it would be green and it's only for a lining anyway. The packet recommends buying one of each and putting them both in for blends.
Anyway, after dropping into the local supermarket for white vinegar, I started filling up the washing machine with hot water. The hot water thing worried me a bit, since fabric tends to shrink in hot water, but the dye needed hot so I suppose there was no other way. It was very exciting when the packet burst open and the water all turned green, and then the fabric went in:
Hot water with green and fabric! The fabric didn't want to get wet, so I spent a bit of time trying to dunk it all under and get rid of air bubbles. My fingers have a slight green tinge now :P. I let the machine do it's thing until it started thinking about draining the water, then I quickly reset the cycle to start from the beginning so there would be more time for the dye to soak in. There was a lot of flailing around and staring anxiously at the closed machine as it did it's thing.
When it had finished I was left with this! I then put it through another normal cycle with some detergent, because the instructions said so. I knew it was going to shrink, but when I pulled it out of the machine I realised that the selvedge didn't shrink. It's all wibbly. I hung it out and measured the length to see how much I'd lost. I started with 4 metres, and now I have 3.4 metres. I lost 60 centimetres! I think that is rather a lot to lose. I wasn't expecting it to shrink quite that much. Anyway, I should still have enough for a cloak, although there will be some epic pondering about how to cut it out and whether I need to piece it together.
The finished product, with some more of the same wool that I didn't dye. A before and after shot. The packet of dye was meant for only about 1kg of fabric. I suspect I had more than 1kg of fabric and it could possibly have done with two packets, but all the colours on the packet are a guide for fabric being dyed from white, rather than from this random bluish colour. Basically I had no idea how this would turn out, but I'm quite happy with the end result even though I would have preferred a darker green. Also, the whole thing seems to have taken the dye, so it must consist of mostly natural fibres. Stay tuned for turning it into a cloak!
I also managed to cut out some brais and a shirt and do all the machine stitching. Tonight I'm going to the Achenfeld A&S meeting, and hopefully I shall at least mostly finish the hand sewing. Tomorrow I need to pay some attention to my uni work. I tried working on my external unit while the wool was in the machine, but I couldn't concentrate, so now I have more that I need to do tomorrow :(
Materials:
Blue-ish coloured wool, a packet of dye and some vinegar! IDye is a popular brand here in Aneala, I've heard good things about it, so I thought I may as well give it a try. The outside of the packet makes it all seem so simple, so I got a bit of a shock when I opened the packet and found a whole bunch of detailed instructions for different methods. There's two different kinds of iDye, one group for natural fabrics, and one for polyester. I had no idea what sort of blend my wool is, but it felt like mostly wool so I thought I'd just get the natural dye and if there was some poly in there that didn't take the dye it wouldn't really matter because most of it would be green and it's only for a lining anyway. The packet recommends buying one of each and putting them both in for blends.
Anyway, after dropping into the local supermarket for white vinegar, I started filling up the washing machine with hot water. The hot water thing worried me a bit, since fabric tends to shrink in hot water, but the dye needed hot so I suppose there was no other way. It was very exciting when the packet burst open and the water all turned green, and then the fabric went in:
Hot water with green and fabric! The fabric didn't want to get wet, so I spent a bit of time trying to dunk it all under and get rid of air bubbles. My fingers have a slight green tinge now :P. I let the machine do it's thing until it started thinking about draining the water, then I quickly reset the cycle to start from the beginning so there would be more time for the dye to soak in. There was a lot of flailing around and staring anxiously at the closed machine as it did it's thing.
When it had finished I was left with this! I then put it through another normal cycle with some detergent, because the instructions said so. I knew it was going to shrink, but when I pulled it out of the machine I realised that the selvedge didn't shrink. It's all wibbly. I hung it out and measured the length to see how much I'd lost. I started with 4 metres, and now I have 3.4 metres. I lost 60 centimetres! I think that is rather a lot to lose. I wasn't expecting it to shrink quite that much. Anyway, I should still have enough for a cloak, although there will be some epic pondering about how to cut it out and whether I need to piece it together.
The finished product, with some more of the same wool that I didn't dye. A before and after shot. The packet of dye was meant for only about 1kg of fabric. I suspect I had more than 1kg of fabric and it could possibly have done with two packets, but all the colours on the packet are a guide for fabric being dyed from white, rather than from this random bluish colour. Basically I had no idea how this would turn out, but I'm quite happy with the end result even though I would have preferred a darker green. Also, the whole thing seems to have taken the dye, so it must consist of mostly natural fibres. Stay tuned for turning it into a cloak!
I also managed to cut out some brais and a shirt and do all the machine stitching. Tonight I'm going to the Achenfeld A&S meeting, and hopefully I shall at least mostly finish the hand sewing. Tomorrow I need to pay some attention to my uni work. I tried working on my external unit while the wool was in the machine, but I couldn't concentrate, so now I have more that I need to do tomorrow :(
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