We need to produce five or six shibori scarves to submit for jury, so we thought we would present our process in doing this including something that we have not done before.
We need to dye our fabric a background color before we proceed with the final dying of the scarves. We do not have a large amount of fabric to dye in this test so in order not to waste dye and water, we have decided to try a low immersion technique. This is something we've never done before so the results are not guaranteed.
First, a few general cautions for those who would follow;
1 Wear old clothes or an apron and rubber gloves.
2 Utensils used for dying should never again be used for food.
3 Wear a respirator when mixing dye from powder.
Supplies for today.
Procion MX dye - Lemon Yellow
Urea (used to keep the dye and the fabric damp)
Pro Chem Flakes (if you live in a smoggy area)
Metaphos (if you are using hard water)
1 quart (liter) water
Zip Lock bags
Soda Ash
We scoured 3 pieces of silk fabric to use in this test by washing them in hot water with 1/2 teaspoon of soda ash and a quarter teaspoon of Synthropol. Scouring removes any oils, dirt or sizing that might interfere with the dyes.
We then put the scoured fabric in water to soak
.
Procion MX dyes are usually dissolved in Urea water, which you make by adding:
9 level tablespoons Urea
1 level teaspoon Pro Chem Flakes
1 level teaspoon Metaphos
to 1 quart (1 L) warm 110°F (44°C) water
Since nothing will dry out in our plastic bags, we have soft water and there is no smog we will just use water from the Tap.
It's time to mix the dye and the fixative.
Do not mix dye in the same room in which you are going to store or dye fabric. The dye powders are very fine and will float through the air even if you think that you have been meticulous and have not spilled anything. These small particles will eventually come down and you may find strange spots of unwanted color on your fabrics.
It was a reasonably quiet day here so I took my water and dye outside. I put on a respirator. Although generally MX dyes are considered to be safe, they are bad in the lungs.
Into a small amount of hot water I put approximately 1/2 teaspoon of lemon yellow dye powder and stirred until it was all wet. Then I added water to make one half Cup Of lemon yellow dye mixture.
In a separate container I mixed 1 1/2 teaspoon of soda ash – with 1 cup of hot water
Now I carefully carried this back to the dying area, and removed my mask.
We squeezed most of the water out of the fabric and opened it up so it was not tightly compressed and inserted it into the bag. We had put the dye in the bag prior to putting the fabric in, and on sober consideration it would be a lot easier to put the fabric into the bag and then add the dye. Once the dye and the fabric are in the bag we got as much air out of the bag as possible and sealed it shut.
We then kneaded the fabric in the bag with the dye for 15 minutes, at which time we added 1/2 cup of soda ash solution to the bag with the dye and the fabric. Again we kneaded the bag with the dye, fabric and the soda ash for about 15 minutes to ensure that the fixative gets to all parts of the fabric.
The bag was taken out to the driveway to batch. Batching is the term used for that period of time that it takes for the dye to completely set and attach itself to the fabric. The time it takes is temperature dependent, the warmer it is the shorter the batching time.
Here in the desert, batching time can be as short as one to two hours in the summer to eight hours in the winter. In cooler climates, batching could take from eight hours to 24 hours. The temperature should be at least 70°F at all times during the batching. When in doubt let it batch longer. We allowed our fabric to batch in the bag for about four hours.
And now the fun part SHOW AND TELL.
We opened the bag and poured out the remaining liquid squeezing the fabric at the same time to get as much out as possible. Then we rinsed the fabric in cold water with a few drops of synthropol until
most of the color was gone from the rinse water. After machine washing and drying we see the color is uniform without any blotching and is a little darker than we had anticipated. Next time we will mix dye using half as much dye powder.
Tomorrow (and next post,) we will re-dye the same pieces as Arashi Shibori (the real fun.)
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