Tomorrow's the big day! (color sat. quest)

[Harmony96]

  heh that smiley stands out so much bigger than the others.

Anyway.  I could have sworn that I have posted in this forum before, but I guess not.  I've never dyed before, but have all the supplies I need to do some dyeing tomorrow.  : D  I'm a mom so instead of T-shirts and doo-rags (I do LOVE your work, though, Ray!), I'm dyeing cloth diapers (48 of them!) and also a looong piece of cloth to be used as a baby carrier.  I'm not overly concerned w/ how the dipes will turn out, I mean they're DIPES after all, but was curious about the cloth. 

I watched Tom and Martine's videos, and am using dyes from Dharma Trading (the fabric is from there also, and the dipes are 100% cotton as well).  I don't necessarily want the colors on the long cloth (aka wrap) to be massively vivid, but I want enough color so that it won't be mostly white, either.  In the videos, they make a dye concentrate of 2 Tbsp of dye powder to 1 c of urea water, then dilute it w/ softened water.  If I dye w/ those concentrates, it's reasonable to assume that I will get Very Bright Colors... and it's also reasonable to assume that between the wrap and the diapers I will rapidly run out of dye.  lol.  Then the info on the other end is from Dharma trading and their kit that just has 2 oz of each of the primaries says you can dye 50 T-shirts (my wrap is 6 yards long and 30" wide), but doesn't say how bright the shirts would be or how much dye to apply, etc.  (I didn't order the kit, that's just info from their site).

So.  I know that I could wait and dye the wrap later, but 1) it's bleached cotton and the dipes are unbleached and 2) once I get going on this dye thing I want to finish it so there's just a one-time mess until I feel the need to do more projects again.    So let's make a 1-5 scale here, 5 is the brightest and most vivid concentrated color in the finished product, 1 is so faint that you have to look very closely to tell that it's not white... I would want the overall color saturation in my wrap to be about a 3.75.  I'm soliciting opinions of how diluted I could make my dyes and still get that color. 

I love Tom and Martine's videos, though, and with them they do help me to visualize how intense the dye solution and wet project need to look to get a corresponding color on the finished project.  (ugh sorry for that bad grammar.)

Anyway I'll post my projects, but it'll probably be Saturday before I can get to the pics. 

[Harmony96]

Hm, methinks I should have asked my question earlier than the day before my project.  lol

[Stone Cold]

I'm new at this too. I just did some new ones. One didn't turn out quite right but oh well, lesson learned.
On the dyes I got from Dharma, I'm using 2tsp to a cup of thickened water. The colors are so bright! I am just guessing, but you could probably dilute that down just alittle and still get good colors.
To keep it from being mostly white- get your spouts DOWN INBETWEEN the folds. I have tried doing some wet from the presoak,dampish,and dry. Each one does different- if that makes sense. Wet the dyes run more.
I have read and learned from alot of different things from the people here.
 

[Harmony96]

2 tsp to a cup?  wow.  I guess I really WON'T run out of dye as soon as I thought I would.  lol.  Tom and Martine had me doing 2 Tbsp to make a concentrate, then diluting it w/ softened water.  Thanks for replying.    I feel confident now in what I need to do in the morning. 

Ok... back to folding.  For the diapers, since they are essentially flat rectangles, but because they already have 4 or 8 layers (4 layers on the edges and 8 layers in the middle), I can't do anything very intricate.  I did manage to attempt to make a few of them into a spiral but the "point" won't be very precise.  Most of the others are just various folds along a straight or curved line.  Usually just w/ the diaper flat, but sometimes I will fold the diaper over once and then do my pleated arrangement.

But with 48 diapers to go through... I definitely needed a break.

As for my plans for the wrap... I'm leaving that a surprise until I post a pic. 

[monica]

Good luck on your venture.  I have been using 1 tablespoon per cup urea water for most dyes unless it is recommended to use more such as turquoise, some blues, greens and black which I double.  My colors always turn out very bright and vibrant.  With some colors, I have a hard time breaking down the dye powder (causing darker dots on my final product) and have found that after mixing for what seems like hours, I with strain the dye solution in a coffee filter before applying. Hope this helps.

Have Fun!

[Harmony96]

Ok, I'm washing out my first batch and waiting for the results.  [fingers crossed smiley].  Some of the surprising things I've learned thus far:

1.  The colors I ordered were some apparently pre-mixed ROYGBV from Dharma, and my first surprising thing was that the color of the dye in powder form was sometimes not even CLOSE to the color of that same dye in liquid form.  lol. 

2.  How my hands would feel almost blistery after tying 49 pieces of cloth.

3.  How long the whole dyeing process for 49 pieces of cloth would take.  I'm glad hubby and I did it together (we made a great team) and I'm glad we reserved most of a whole day to do so.  I even did as much as I could in advance.

4.  Hubby works in a pool supply store, and he at first urged me to mix soda ash solution w/ a wooden or plastic utensil because it would make the water very hot.  Then later when he saw on T&M's video that they were just using a wire whisk, he said it would be ok.  Well sure enough, I mixed up my solution, and it was indeed a very nice exothermic reaction.

5.  It would probably be better to tie a damp piece of cloth.  I tied all my pieces when they were dry, and then once they were soaked the ties got loose.   

6.  That you shouldn't squeeze the bottles too hard, even though you're impatient for the dye to come out faster, because it WILL come out faster... just not out through the spout.  lol.  (If I squeezed too hard, the dye got forced up through the threads and out the bottom of the whole cap.)

7.  Despite all the work and all the time involved from preparation to cleanup, I had SO much fun and can't wait to do this again. 

Ok, back to washing... I think my poor machines will be running ALLL day today.