Sunday, July 18, 2010

Dye Frenzy


Yesterday my quilt bee got together for a Dye Frenzy. We used DYLON Permanent Fabric Dye. It takes 4 cups of warm water to dissolve and you add 4 Tablespoons of table salt to that. For a deeper or more vibrant result, that's it! Simply drop in your fabric and wait. Otherwise, you can add up to 4 cups of cold water to increase the amount of fabric that you can dye.

We each brought a pack or 2 of dye and some fabrics. Note: Fabrics MUST be prewashed! If not, the color won't take. The colors we used are shown in the photo. Not shown are Radient Red, Goldfish Orange, and Tropical Green (which was used to dye the old T-shirt shown.)
The method used for dyeing the T-shirt was to accordian fold it lengthwise and place large office clamps at varying intervals. I'm pleased with the way it turned out. It could have been considered for over-dyeing, but I ran out of time.
The purple piece was done by drawing lines with glue gel, allowing the glue to dry, and then placing it in the dye bath. The color turned out light because I did this one last and ran out of time. This technique opens a world of possibilites!

I would recommend this activity to any group of quilters. Smaller groups can get away with 1 pack of dye per color (for use with smaller pieces of fabric, such as Fat Quarters.) Larger groups, or if your group will be dying yardage, may want to use 2 packs per color. Our group used 1 pack per color and had dye leftover!
Combine the dye packs with a couple of buckets or tubs from the Dollar Store for each color (one for the dye bath and one for the rinse water) and this is an affordable project. Better still...It's TONS of fun!
The only thing I would change about our event would be to add tables next time for the rinse procedure. It often takes some time and multiple buckets of water to rinse out the excess dye. It's rather back-breaking work, if the rinse basins are on the ground. We might also want to have more squirt bottles and some spray bottles available for additional dyeing options.
I really hope you will try this with your group of quilting friends.

1 comment:

  1. I've dyed yarn before and really enjoyed it and enjoyed the results. I've not tried fabric before but it looks fun.

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