Tips to Dye for

I thought it might be nice to share some of my tips for Stove Top immersion dying.  It's nothing that special but sometimes it is just nice to hear what does and does not work on those funky little instructions that come with the dye.  Typically I get all my dyes from Dharma Trading but for this time I wanted to try out something a little more commercial and supposedly easier to use.

 I selected the iDye packets from Joann Fabrics.  Simple enough and fairly cheap with my teacher's discount.  I knew I was only dying natural fibered fabrics such as my silk organza and some cotton and wool items that I wanted to revamp some life into by dying.

Tip #1 Get the dye appropriate for your fabric.  Seems simple enough right.  It can easily be messed up because the packets are all grouped together and it isn't uncommon for them to get mixed up.  Just read each packet and make sure it is the right one to match your fabrics.  Usually it is just divided between natural fiber materials (silk, wool, cotton, linen, bamboo) vs Man made materials (lycra, polyester)

Tip #2 Baste the edges of your fabric so it frays less and keeps it's shape.  This is a huge help to both the dying process as well as the pre-wash to keep your fabric from coming apart or losing it's shape because of one pulled thread.

Tip #3 Pre-Wash your fabric.  It doesn't seem important but it really is.  A lot of fabrics will have some sort of finish on them that you don't think about such as a simple starch to help keep shape.  If these finishes or even possible dirt or previously water marks are not removed then you could end up with inconsistent color in the fabric dye.  Also residue on the fabric might change the reactive nature of the dye itself.

 Tip #4 Do not use a pot that you intend to eat or cook with ever again.  Simply put the dye has chemicals in it.  They may never be completely clean or out of your pot. Are you willing to risk your health or someone else's on the chance that they ingest something not necessarily toxic but not safe either?  I bought my large soup pot just for this purpose and I bought the other one from a thrift store because I would never trust using a thrift store pot for food anyways (because I'm anal like that).

Tip #5 When the Instructions tell you to not put the 1/3 cup of vinegar directly onto your fabric you should listen.  Ok for these iDye instructions it tells you to dissolve the dye in the hot simmering water first, then put in your fabric then put in your Vinegar.  It is kind of darn hard not to get vinegar directly onto the fabric with you are pouring it into the mixture.  I finally just put it in after the dye was dissolved and then put my fabric in.  What happens if the vinegar touches the fabric is wherever it touched it gives off this instant reaction and that particular place will have a very vibrant section, It gives a bit of a tie dyed look but in shades of the color which can be cool if that's what you want but that is not what I was aiming for.

Tip #6 Timing is everything.  You see that bright and vibrant yellow I have on the far right side of this photo?  Now look at the far left and see that gold like olive green swatch circled in pink.  Those are from the same dye bath.  The difference is the timing. I followed the instructions completely for the first one which had to simmering my fabric for 15 minutes and I got the dark olive shade yellow.  I tried again keep close watch on my time and how the color was seeping into the fabric and pulled it out when I felt it was saturated enough.  I kept the dye pot going while I cold washed the fabric to make sure when all the dye was out it was still holding the color and vibrancy I wanted.  Luckily it did, had it not back into the pot I would of put it.

Tip #7 Cold wash it in the machine afterwards.  I personally like to cold wash everything I dye afterwards in the machine because most likely whatever I dye will go into my washing machine at some point so I need to make sure it will retain it's color through the wash.  This also helps a lot to get the excess dye out.  The biggest thing is how with natural fibers it helps to set the color.  Natural react to heat the same way we learned most molecules do back in science class.  When something get's hot is expands, for natural fibers that means they open up enabling them to be changed by fabric manipulation or color (which is why we use hot simmering water for dye baths).  When something get's cold it compresses, so once the dye is in the expanded fibers you close it up with the cold water to lock it into them.

That's all I've got for you folks~!  Good luck and happy dye-ing!

Wedding Dress - Deux

After my last post with my dress design started I had to stop for a bit due to lack of materials.  You would think that 2 yards would get you something a little more substantial but not when it's a wedding dress.  I easily breezed through those two yards of 55" wide Organza without even getting the full front draped.  I quickly ordered 11 yard bolt from Dharma Trading.  Along with that I got silk threads in natural and white.  Turns out I only needed white.  You would think a huge amount of fabric would be in a big box but not really.  It came in a bubble mailer much smaller then anticipated.  Organza is very thin and squishy! You can see how it came to me when I opened the mailer.

Since I now had the fresh organza I decided to take some of my scraps and practice the embroidery on it to find the best method of stabilizer.  It is sort of strange because people use raw silk organza as a stabilizer on it's own.  So My first test for the colors and onto the organza I did two layers on top of each other in the hoop.  It was a little tricky since they wanted to slide against each other as I was setting it into the hoop.
I'm using this gorgeous Chrysanthemum embroidery design that was actually one of the free designs from Brother right here.

Watching the embroidery machine do it's magic is incredibly mesmerizing.  The constant humming and shifting of the frame and stitches is very soothing as well.  It makes you feel like you are getting a lot of progress even though all you did was set the pattern and push the button with the color changes in the thread.  I have no idea how on earth machine embroidery was possible before these beautiful electronic machines.
 

After I was done I played with positioning against what I already had.  I also found that my bust sash is going to have to be at least half an inch winder then I had originally draped. It's ok that's why we do muslin's and mock up's before we get really hot and heavy into the patterns or sewing things together. 

 

My night didn't end here,  While my wonderful machine was doing the embroidery I was at my other machine the Innovis 80 working on pleats and the hot hot steamy un-sexy iron.  It was very tedious and hot work.  The kitties made it that much worse.  They seem to have taken after their human mom and only prefer the finest of fabrics, thus they always want to get into my silks even though there is some awesome shredded up poly organza laying on the floor for them to mess with. 

Testing out two pleat sizes i decided I needed both and also a third tier at the bottom which will be a ruffle to add some volume to the end of it. In my sketches below there will be embroidery along the top bands and for the main long dress on the strip of fabric coming down the front. The Main dress is going to be mostly white with some hints of pastels.  I think the Second dress I am going to go with really rich deep colors to make it fun.

Yes it looks like a huge mess right now but it's all the process.  I had to take a step back to look at my dress.  it's hard to judge anything when you are up close and in the middle of it.  My suggestion is always to step back across the room or to face it through a mirror.  You really have to get a different perspective

when working on a complicated or personal garment or else your eyes could deceive you into hating it or making hasty unnecessary changes.

To Dye For

Recently with my work on my Hand and Lock submission I had trouble finding those colors so I had opted to buy dyes from Dharma Trading company .

They worked BEAUTIFULLY!  With some pointers from my friend Miss Megan Mac I was able to come out quite successful with my dye baths.  This not a clean process at all.  First you have all these  loose powders not just they dye powder but the soda ash and other preparation chemicals and loads of salt.  Also the first rule is not to wear white and not to wear anything that you particularly like because most likely it will get a splash or so of whatever color dye you are working with.  Also GLOVES you must remember to wear gloves unless you don't mind the unnatural colored hands, whilst most people will avoid making contact with your hands till it fades.  Also must remember to use pots, buckets that are clean but that you don't mind ruining.  Once a dye bucket always a dye bucket in my opinion.  I bought a cheap 20 quart stock pot off of Target to do both cold and boiling dye baths. 

I had to get the appropriate dyes to go with the fabrics I was working with.  Even though it said that Fiber Reactive dyes would work for my silk organza the Acid Dyes were said to work better.  I saved the Fiber Reactive dyes for my cotton yarns and cotton jersey.  I got a bit of Indigo pre-reduced which is the only one I have yet to try out.

Hand and Lock - Colors and Fabric

I just made my order today for my Hand and Lock competition fabrics.  I am using Silk Organza for the body and Cotton Jersey for the beading underneath.  I am also getting some worsted weight cotton yarn to do some cording.  All bought from Dharma Trading Company.  Yes the website looks cheesy BUT they have incredible prices on dyes, natural fabrics and yarns and many other assortments of things.  I was able to get an 11 yard bolt of 100% silk 45" wide Silk Organza from them for less then $40 which is AMAZING.  I could fathom making my own wedding dress if the price is that low.   If you checked out the website you'll notice it all comes either white or natural colors in the fabrics and yarns.  Personally I think that is fantastic, since you can then dye the colors to suit what you want and need.   Perfect for this contest since I wanted to experiment with some ombre on the sleeves.   It will also make it so much easier to match my colors.

Speaking of colors I was looking for inspiration swatches for them since some of them seemed unfamiliar to me.  The following are all the colors in my portion of the brief that I am supposed to be using.
The pictures are of the following Indigo, Indigo, Antique blue, Blue Smoke, Crystal, Azure, Lead, Azure, Light Foam, Sky Blue, Sea Breeze, and Crystal.