color shifts-cotton vs. silk/protien fiber with MX dyes

[Kathy]

Any pure unmixed MX dye will be the same color on silk and on cotton, if both fabrics start out the same white, but the pre-mixed colors, having been prepared for cotton, are quite unpredictable on silk. It might be handy to make a list of what colors specific cotton-standardized mixtures produce on silk. So, as a start, we now know that you have found that ProChem's raspberry on silk looks much like ProChem's Boysenberry on cotton, and I seem to recall that ProChem's cotton black makes an olive green on silk.

Can you tell us about any other observations you've made, of what colors you get on silk using mixed colors that were standardized for cotton?

Paula

from http://www.itiedye.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=73


Not dyeing on cotton very much and also not being the most "scientific" of dyers, so to speak, I really don't have many comparison observations other than browns. What I have noticed is that there is a big shift towards reds when using brown on silk. I've used Dharma's dark brown and Prochems Rust brown(have basic brown too but haven't used it yet). On both I have gotten a much more reddish rusty color. However I have been able to slightly balance this by adding more green(prochems Emerald) to the mix. This helps to even out the color but I still don't get a good brown with MX dyes on silk. Its o.k though cuz knowing what the color shift is I can use it and I like the end results.

Kathy

[fiberartist219]

I wish I had read this post before I bought 8 oz of Chocolate brown and a whole bunch of silk scarves!!! Not only were my creations a scary shade of red, but hardly any of the resists showed up! I tried to overdye some of them green, but I didn't have much luck there. Should I discharge and start over?

[pburch]

You can try discharging them, using a reductive discharge such as Rit Color Remover or Jacquard Discharge Paste. Some MX dyes will discharge reasonably well, others never will, no matter what you use. Don't try chlorine bleach! You probably already know about that.

Were you using soda ash to set the dye on your silk? I always do. Maybe you should try citric acid or vinegar, instead, though. Pia Fish has found much less color shifting when she used an acid-dyeing recipe, when dyeing silk with Procion MX type dyes, as compared to using soda ash to set the dye. Why don't you try that, on a new scarf, and see what happens? She steams her Procion MX-dyed silks; some people use the microwave when using acid to set the dye in silk. I have a number of recipes listed on my page about Using Fiber Reactive Dyes on Protein Fibers. It's best to use some sort of heat when acid-dyeing with MX dyes, because the room-temperature recipes for using acid with these dyes are less reliable and tend to produce paler colors.

Paula

[fiberartist219]

Thanks Paula. I did some samples with various mixtures of browns today. I did four different neutral mixtures with cotton and silk. Of course, the cotton all looks fabulous. Three out of four silks, however, looked bright red, and the fourth, Havanna Brown, came out a golden tan.

I also tried Chocolate brown and Havanna Brown on the silk with vinegar and a little time in the microwave. The Chocolate still looks like a horrendous raspberry color, but the Havanna came out *much* nicer. I will keep experimenting until I find something good. If nothing else, I can use the Havanna/vinegar mix, but I'm hoping for at least a few good browns.

My next adventure will involve ProChem's Midnight blue and golden yellow. I've seen this before on silk, and it makes a nice mud color, but I'm not sure if it will turn a rich brown or not. I think I'm also going to hit up DyersList to see if anyone there has any thoughts.

[pburch]

For a rich brown, start with a deep orange (orange MX-2R), and add a little blue (such as blue MX-G). How much blue to add? For most blue MX dyes, this should be far more than you would use for cotton. Trial and error will be necessary, since no one has quantified it.

Look at an example of the brown you want to use, then figure out whether it is a little more orange, or a little more red, or a little more green, or a little more purple. Start with that color and add some of its opposite on the color wheel.

You can decide which colors to use, pretty much, by looking at Olli Niemitalo's wondrful dye mixer applet, but of course on silk you have to adjust the relative quantitites of the different dyes you use, based on how strongly each individual dye color reacts on silk.

It's easier to understand what's going on if you use only pure single-hue unmixed dyes as your starting primaries on silk. Mixtures are too confusing because you're never sure which dyes in the mixture are working well and which are not. Use my chart on "Which Procion MX colors are pure, and which mixtures?" to find out which dye colors are unmixed single-hue  dyes.

Paula

[fiberartist219]

Paula,

Thanks again for your help. This morning's experiments with midnight blue and golden yellow were a hit! I tried with both soda ash and vinegar. The vinegar experiments came out beautiful and dark. The soda ash experiments came out beautiful as well, but they were much lighter. I know midnight blue isn't pure, but the small traces of fushia in it were just enough. The golden yellow is the closest I have to a pure orange, and I think the midnight blue was just purple enough to compliment it into a brown.

I can't wait to try it out on a full scarf. I used scraps for my experiments, because I just can't afford to lost another scarf to that horrible red! Now that I have the secrets... I should be able to make some wonderful designs tonight or tomorrow. I can't wait to see how it looks on resists!