Color Dyeing clothes

Choose the right dye

The longest-lasting and easiest-to-use dyes for hand-dyeing cotton fiber will be the cold water dietary fiber reactive dyes, including the Procion MX type dyes present many tie-dye kits. Since they're fixed with sodium carbonate (a standard home chemical), instead of temperature, you don't need to purchase a dyeing cooking pot to use all of them. Its unusual that there's reasonable for a hand dyer to use other things for dyeing cotton fiber.

Cotton can certainly be colored with direct dyes and all-purpose dyes, although the colors because of these less washfast dyes will diminish quickly unless a cationic aftertreatment can be used to repair them. The main advantage of direct dyes is the cheapness. In the event that you purchase direct dyes in volume from a dye supplier, it is possible to color a pound of material with no more than six cents' well worth of dye. Unfortuitously, all-purpose dyes are generally among the very priciest of dyes because of the means they are packed and promoted, costing about two bucks per pound of fiber dyed; compare this into the price of Procion dyes from the major dye vendors, usually forty to sixty dollars per lb of dietary fiber, although clothes dyed with Procion dyes will remain bright for decades longer.

Vat dyes, including indigo, and naphthol dyes may also be used to dye cotton fiber.

If you are using natural dyes on cotton fiber, you will have to utilize a mordant such as for example alum, often in combination with tannin, to fix the dyes towards fibre. Most basic dyes won't bond to cotton as quickly because they do in order to wool. Cannot attempt to utilize a recipe for dyeing wool with natural dyes, as cotton requires different materials and methods. Choose a beneficial recipe which has been resolved specifically for use with cotton fiber.

Dyes in order to prevent

Never attempt to color cotton with food color. Food coloring, particularly Kool-aid drink mix, Wilton cake dye, or Easter egg dye, works well to dye wool, but is not changed into a dye for cotton fiber. It's going to just wash-out, making at most of the an ugly stain.

The acid dyes that are always dye necessary protein materials such as for example wool won't run cotton, aside from an extremely few which are effective at additionally acting as direct dyes. The disperse dyes used to dye synthetic fibers like polyester also maybe not just work at all on cotton.

Guidelines

The easiest method to dye cotton is to try using a dietary fiber reactive dye, such Procion MX dye. See How at hand Dye for instructions. To dye a single solid color, use a washing machine or bucket, with a large ratio of water to fabric, and constant stirring.

Sources for cotton clothes to dye

Any cotton fiber clothes which free from surface remedies, particularly liquid opposition, stain resistance, or anti-pilling or permanent press finishes, will dye really because of the correct type of dye. (never ever get stain-resistant t-shirts to tie-dye!)

But take into account that commercially-sewn garments take place together with polyester stitching unless particularly labeled otherwise. Polyester won't dye with cotton dyes. If you don't purchase unique clothing which sewn with cotton fiber bond, expect the seams to keep their initial color once you color cotton fiber clothes.

One of the best readily available sources for ready-to-dye white-cotton clothes blanks is Dharma Trading Company. Nearly all their clothing blanks are sewn with cotton fiber thread, which takes similar dyes as material. Gildan Ultra Cotton t-shirts tend to be sewn with cotton bond and generally are offered by numerous manufacturers. For tie-dyeing, t-shirts which can be sewn with polyester thread are usually satisfactory, but also for dyeing solid colors or low-water immersion dyeing, cotton fiber bond is most beneficial.

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