Dyed Linens

Photography by: Paul BARBERA

Fabric-Dyeing How-To

You don’t must start with white fabric—if you need to reinvent a coloured product, try a color cleaner (much like bleach, but nondamaging) before dyeing it. This will whiten or lighten the material so it usually takes on brand-new shade.

1. Clean your fabric product in case it is new. Cover work area with a dropcloth. Fill a container, bin, or stainless sink (large enough to put up the fabric loosely) about halfway with scorching tap water or boiling-water. (For wool, water must certanly be warm, not hot.) Wearing rubber gloves, add liquid dye, mixing colors as desired (see Mixing Colors, right). Add sodium if dyeing cotton or linen, or white vinegar for wool or silk; quantity depends on measurements of dye bath. We utilized ¼ cup either salt or vinegar for a bath of approximately 1 gallon, ½ glass for 2 gallons, and 1 glass for 3 or maybe more gallons. (These improvements assist the textile use the dye.)

2. Completely wet material (you can operate large pieces through the washing machine’s wash cycle to wet all of them uniformly) and immerse in dye shower. With a stainless metal spoon (or a wooden spoon reserved limited to dyeing), go material around in water to prevent uneven dyeing. Keep item in dye 5 to quarter-hour, stirring the complete time. Enable textile to get slightly darker than you desire it, as it will diminish slightly with rinsing and drying.

3. Very carefully pull textile from dye and wash in working liquid, beginning with warm water then rendering it cooler, until it works obvious. (It is possible to rinse the material when you look at the washing machine’s wash cycle.) Wash out bucket, bin, or sink straight away.

4. Wash product with moderate detergent regarding cool pattern, then dry.

Mixing Colors

Below are treatments for colors shown, each utilizing 1 quart of liquid therefore the specific amounts of Rit liquid dyes.

A, G. 1 teaspoon Fuchsia

B. 1 tablespoon golden-yellow + 1 teaspoon Tan + ½ tsp Kelly Green

C. 1 tablespoon Scarlet + 2 teaspoons Petal Pink + ½ tsp Taupe

D. 2 teaspoons Petal Pink + ½ tsp Cocoa

E. 6 teaspoons dark-green + 2 teaspoons Teal

F. 3 teaspoons Teal + 2 teaspoons Taupe

To scale-up the dye-bath size, utilize more liquid, but don’t increase dye amounts in identical proportions. For-instance, the dark-green bedding makes use of formula E; we made a bath with about 30 gallons of liquid, 12 tablespoons of dark-green dye, and 4 tablespoons of Teal dye. Typically, start with less dye, test on a paper towel, and add even more as needed.

Personalized Colors

Whenever coming up with your own tones, obtain the look you desire without wasting dye by simply making a tiny dye bathtub first: include the dyes to warm water in a large cup measuring cup, noting how much color you’re incorporating. Test along with with a paper towel. If you have the hue you desire, make the bathtub in a more substantial quantity. (See Mixing Colors, above, for tips on increasing the size of the dye bath.)

Shock Outcomes

You will never know precisely how a material takes a shade. A white napkin and an off-white napkin may not come out looking similar. Trim and sewing usually takes color differently compared to the base textile does. And even though dyeing is a great way to revive old, faded materials, it won’t eliminate as well as necessarily cover spots.

For Large Items

When dyeing bedding and tablecloths, we utilized a big plastic container set-in a bath tub (to catch any drips) and brought in containers of water heated on the kitchen stove. It’s specifically vital that you keep consitently the material moving whilst it sits in the dye shower; use an extended spoon to very carefully stir, raise, and redistribute it constantly. As soon as the products achieved the required color, we lifted all of them down and put all of them in another vacant container to just take all of them toward washer, in which we rinsed all of them in the wash cycle.

Washing Dyed Fabrics

The initial repeatedly you clean dyed items, wash all of them alone to avoid bleeding—or add an old white washcloth or sock to see if dye runs. Over time sufficient reason for repeat washings, the colour for the dye may fade—but bear in mind, you can color them once again.