Good tutes for dyeing with MX/ fibre reactive dyes?

[flapjack]

I can handle my acid dyes, thanks to the 3IG tutorials, but I have some cotton that I need to dye and I'm not sure how to get started. Do I need to make stock solutions with the procion mx dyes the way that I normally do with my acid dyes? If so, how strong should I make them? Is there anything else I should know?

FWIW, I'm planning on doing mostly tie-dye and maybe some low-water immersion stuff, if this makes any difference to anything?

[ma2maya]

Check out Itiedye.com. I have a tutorial there for LWI

As far as a stock solution, the only thing I make in advance is my dye paste. I like to tie-dye with a slightly thickened dye to give more control over the flow, but this certainly is not necessary. As far as dye solution goes my recipe, gleened from various sources esp. Micheal Fowler, is 2tbs dye powder/ cup of water(thickened or not). Of course, I have been making smaller amounts lately so I cut my powder relative to the amount of liquid.

I also presoak my tied items in soda ash rather than activating the dye itself. This lends itself to allowing me to use the dye at a later time. My soak is 1c soda ash/gallon of h20. After the soak(15 min or so) I put them in the washer on the spin cycle to wring out excess soda ash. I like to dye on slightly damp items rather than dripping wet.

If you are interested in the thickened dye, I use sodium alginate and urea. For 4 cups of extra thick paste I use 1/4c urea added to the h20 in a blender. I then prepare 3tbs of the alginate by "wetting" it with rubbing alcohol so it is the consistancy of wet beach sand. The rubbing alcohol functions to isolate the individual grains of alginate to they will more easily and quickly absorb the water once added to my urea water. Otherwise, it gets clumpy and you have to wait a day for the paste to completely "set".

For tie-dyeing I dilute the paste with water. My recipe is roughly 2 parts water to 1 part paste. I then add the dye powder and shake away to mix everything.

Tie-dye Wiki is also a good source for tie-dye.

HTH!
Kathy

[flapjack]

Ooh, thankyou i love your etsy shop- did you get those colours using fibre reactive dyes on silk, or were they acid?

[ma2maya]

Thanks I use Procion dyes w/ soda ash. Occasionally I will use vinegar instead of the SA. Some colors I just can't get real well with the procion dyes(color seperation) and have contemplated getting some acid dyes for those colors. Blacks and browns are the trouble makers.

Kathy

[flapjack]

Yeah, but black and brown give everyone trouble That's the beauty of yarn- sheep come in those colours already...
I had a first crack at LWI this morning, and I like the results. I should have had more guts/more patience to let the colours meld even more, but that's part of the learning curve, right?

eta: just realised. If you used fibre reactive dyes and soda ash, that's the same stuff you use for cotton: so it would be possible to do a playsilk and a t-shirt in the same dyebath, yes?

[Harmony96]

I used these videos to learn how to tie dye. Volume I goes over the basics of the dyes and chemicals that you'll need, and volumes II and III recap that, as well as show some of the more advanced shapes you can do. My local library had a copy of the set, so you could check there for it since it's kind of pricey.

[ma2maya]

Yes, those are great vids Harmony!

Flapjack, yes you could do both in the same dyebath. Its also interesting to see how the 2 fibers have their variances in how they take they dye.

Kathy