Susan Desperately Seeking Help

[Susan]

Hi,
OK - I think I am the definition of NEWBIE.  I have never posted to any forum of any kind & I have never tie dyed!!  Here is my story (sorry it so long!).  I'm throwing a baby shower for my sister & brother-in-law on Saturday, June 16.  They explicitly said "no games!".  However, I know they like tie-dyes. Sooooo....I have this crazy? idea to surprise them by having everyone at the shower tie-dye little onesies, baby t-shirts, hats & the like.  I thought it would be special b/c each piece will be made by a loved one & they'll think of that person whenever their baby wears that piece.  Anywho, I found this website via Wikipedia & all the people who post on here seem so nice, friendly & helpful.  So here I am taking the plunge into posting (which I thought I'd never do) and tie-dying.  I have checked out a couple of tie-dye books from the library & have spent hours on the Dharma website trying to put together my shopping cart.  I have to admit that I'm getting a bit overwhelmed.  There are about 40 adults & 10 small children coming to the shower -- it is going to be in my backyard -- it will probably be hot as I'm in North Carolina.  I am a Project Manager by profession, and I tend to plan to the Nth degree, so I'm hoping I can pull this off.  I've already purchased/collected squirt bottles, gloves, aprons, aluminum pans, old newspapers, & onesies from local discount stores.  I plan to buy the "serious starter kit", some extra dye colors, and reduran from Dharma.  The "serious starter kit" is good for ~20 (adult?) t-shirts, so I'm hoping the kit & the extra dyes should cover 50 baby onesies?  Should I buy extra soda ash, synthrapol, & urea?  The shower will last about 4 hours.  Is it possible to add an "activator" or microwave the onesies, so that we can "unveil" the onesies before everyone leaves -- or is it critical to let the onesies set for 12 - 24 hours?  Also, when you rinse/wash the onesies at the end with the synthrapol -- can you do that in the washing machine -- all together --- or do you have rinse/wash them all separately?  Any advice at all would be very much appreciated.   Crazy Susan

[pburch]

You can't microwave onesies because they have metal snaps. Baby buntings and plain infant t-shirts lack the snaps, but when my children were small, I really, really liked having the snap crotches for easy diaper changes. I think it's worth the wait, although you're right that it would be a lot of fun to be able to unveil the shirts at the party. The 'activator' IS the soda ash presoak. The only way to speed things up a lot is by adding heat.

I always dump the freshly dyed items, after the overnight waiting period for the dye to react with the fabric and the soda ash, directly into the washer, all together. I use a pair of blunt-tipped children's scissors to snip the rubber bands just before popping the items into the washing machine. I pre-fill the machine with cool water, and usually I add Synthrapol. The most important step in avoiding backstaining—dye from one shirt getting on to another oner—is to make sure that all of the dye has had plenty of time to react. You can get some unfortunate permanent stains that look like mistakes if you still have active dye when one shirt touches another.

An alternative approach is to choose your colors so that everything looks good together, using, say, fuchia, purple, and blue, OR fuchsia, orange and yellow, OR blue, green, and yellow, but never two opposing colors on the color wheel together, such as red and green OR purple and yellow OR blue and orange.  If everything looks good together, who care if it runs? The worst problem is when you get some purple or black onto a pale yellow area. Everyone can tell that something went wrong.

By the way, I used to use the word "onesies" on my site to refer to some snap-crotch baby shirts that happened to be Gerber brand Onesies, but the Gerber company sent me a nastygram about copyright infringement because they were not sure that the garments were actually Gerber brand, and they are very protective of their trademarked word "onesie". If the message been pleasant, I might have altered my site to include the Gerber name and trademark, but the fact that they assumed, wrongly, that the shirts were of another brand, and were really quite unpleasant with their legal email, caused me to just remove all references altogether. Do be sure to check out the wide array of different baby clothes designs at the Dharma web site, for the future.

Paula

[Susan]

Thank you Paula!!  Duh-huh....I forgot about the metal snaps on the baby thinga-ma-jobs (I'll refer to them as "bodysuits" from now on .  I actually have two babes under the age of 3, so I should have remembered that (of course my memory is shot by those 2 babes, oh well, I digress)!! 

Thanks especially for the explanation about the soda ash pre-soak being the activator and the washing machine tips. 

OK -- still brainstorming "unveiling" options -- so if heat is the only thing that can speed things up (besides good ol' time & patience), what about using a hair dryer?  I realize that sounds like a stretch...but those "bodysuits" are pretty tiny and my hair dryer is pretty powerful.  What do you think -- be honest if you think this is a stupid idea.

Thanks again!!

[pburch]

Maybe not a hair dryer, but if you sort them by color, you could put them in plastic bags and immerse those in a tub of very hot water? I don't know, sounds impractical for a large number. I used a hair dryer on Elmer's Glue Gel which I was using as a resist, all over a large dress, because I was in a hurry to get it dry enough to dye. It took forever.

You could do traditional old-style tie-dyeing in a large bucket or a washing machine, tying the garments and immersion dyeing them, instead of squirting the dyes on. It only takes an hour, not counting washing out afterwards, but most of us prefer multicolor tie-dyes.

You must be sure to keep the garments damp while the dye is reacting with the fabric and soda ash. Urea in the dye mix, following the usual tie-dye recipe, will make sure to keep the fabric moist. Once the fabric is truly dry, no further dye/fabric reaction can take place.

We first started tie-dyeing at my house using the instructions from Earth Guild, which most unfortunately specified a need for heat setting ("HEAT SETTING: Undo ties, rinse well, then wash cloth in very hot soapy water (boiling is good or steaming or baking") their Procion MX dyes. Heat setting won't do anything after the dye is rinsed out, but we did it anyway, because we believed the silly instructions. We tried all sorts of different methods for that unnecessary heat-setting step. We tossed freshly dyed clothing in the dryer (permanently staining the inside of the drum turquoise, but doing no harm to other clothing since we wiped it out afterwards), we baked in the oven, we tried boiling. All a silly waste of time since we'd allowed enough hours for the reaction to take place already (though boiling is a very efficient way to wash out excess dye afterwards). I suppose that it would work to bake your fabric+dye+soda ash in order to speed uop the reaction time, though. To keep the clothing moist, you'd need to wrap in plastic and/or use plenty of urea. Beware of the reaction between soda ash and aluminum. It's not always too bad, and does not necessarily change the dye color, but it will damage the aluminum.

From what I've read, Procion MX dye reacts three times more quickly for every 10°C rise in temperature. That's 18°F. If six hours is long enough at 70°F, then two hours should be sufficient at 88°F, forty minutes at 106°F....That's the temperature inside the bundle, not the temperature the oven is set to, of course. A water bath transfers heat much more quickly than a dry oven.

Paula

[steve]

BTW--I find that when dyeing with a group over a very short period of time that it is much easier to use activated dyes rather than soda soak.

Gee--am I going to have to edit this post to avoid a nastygram . Maybe I need to add it to the "bad word" filter.

Steve

[Susan]

Thanks Steve -- I know, who knew the other word for baby "body suit" was a nasty word...... Geez whiz... I didn't have an idea it was a proprietary word.  I guess it kind of like "Kleenex", oops I mean "tissue paper".

So, this is probably an ignorant question, but what exactly is an "activated" dye? 

Thanks,
Susan

[steve]

Thanks Steve -- I know, who knew the other word for baby "body suit" was a nasty word...... Geez whiz... I didn't have an idea it was a proprietary word.  I guess it kind of like "Kleenex", oops I mean "tissue paper".

So, this is probably an ignorant question, but what exactly is an "activated" dye? 

Thanks,
Susan

The soda ash is added to the dye solution directly rather than soaking the garments in soda ash and adding the dye. You add 1/2 tsp of soda ash to the dye solution.

Pros: You no longer have to tie, then soda soak, then wring, dry, or wait for water to be removed from the tied fabric. These processes inevitably distort your folds if you are in a hurry. Spritz the fabric for easy folding, bind, then apply dye immediately.

Cons: You must use the dye up within a couple of hours. You cannot store activated dye for reuse.

One is not inherently better, both are useful depending upon desired outcome and circumstances.

One of the least fun parts of a group tie-dye is the soda soak and water extraction. Newbies don't know how to tie things up well and the folds often get screwed up in the process. Activated dye side-steps the whole issue.

[Susan]

Paula & Steve -- Thank you so much for all your help.  You are both so kind.

OK, how does this plan sound?  Is this feasible?
1.) Everyone will spritz their infant "bodysuit" with plain ol' H2O.
2.) Then they will fold & tie.
3.) Then they will apply the activated dye (probably w/squeeze bottles), which is basically a combination of dye + soda ash + urea in one solution
4.) Then we'll put the dyed "bodysuits" into individual gallon size plastic bags (or put like colored items together in one bag)
5.) Then we'll put those bags into buckets of really hot water from my bath tub...my hubby says our water can get hot as 110°F-120°F
6.) After 3 hours or so, then we could do the "unveiling"
7.) After everyone goes home, then I'll then wash the "bodysuits" w/ the synthrapol in the washing machine (separate loads as needed)

Another idea one of my friends suggested is that I stick w/ the 12 -24 hr. wait time, and simply take photos of the completed "bodysuits" and then post them on the internet after the party so everyone could see their final product.

Again, I can't thank you enough for all your advice and patience.
- Susan

[steve]

It you happen to have one of those hot sunny days, you might be able to just put them on an asphalt surface and cover them with black plastic. I use solar power to speed cure my tie-dye sometimes--even though I live in the Adirondacks where we have far fewer hot days (and no asphalt--just gravel).

Sounds like a plan. While I'm at it, you might also take a look at Pro Chemical and Dye.

Steve

[silverlil]

Hi, Susan!

I don't know which part of the country you live in, but you could also bundle up your little dyed bags of baby bodysuits into some big black trash bags and set them out in the sun to work.  I generally let mine sit 24 hours whether it's hot or just warm outside.  (Texas in the summer is quite hot!) Hope your shower comes out delightfully!  I tie-dyed a bunch of cloth diapers for a co-worker and she loved them.  Good luck!  

Silverlil

[pburch]

Then we'll put those bags into buckets of really hot water from my bath tub...my hubby says our water can get hot as 110°F-120°F

Insted of buckets, why not just haul the bags in and set them in the filled bathtub? The water will stay hot longer in the bathtub than in buckets. The bags should keep the dye from getting into the tub, but if any were to get into the tub, it would not stick. I would use a temporarily-emptied plastic storage box to transport the bags, in case of dripping in the house.

Our water heater is set higher than yours. The safety people say to set it to 120°F, but that does not kill dust mites in the laundry (killing dust mites requires 135°), and I have a dust allergy. Fortunately it takes forever for the water at our sinks to warm up, so it's not dangerous for our kids, who are old enough now not to be much endangered anyway. I also prefer hotter water for washing out excess dye after dyeing (except for the initial rinse).

Paula

[Susan]

Hi Paula,
I thought about putting the bags directly in the tub, but I was worried about leakage & permanent stains on our white porcelain tub.  Are you sure if bags leak, that they won't stain?  Is there some sort of remover if they do (bleach?)?  BTW, my husband just went & verified our water heater temp and it actually is set to 140°F.  That should help a little...

Thanks for the suggestions!!
Susan

[steve]

Hi Paula,
I thought about putting the bags directly in the tub, but I was worried about leakage & permanent stains on our white porcelain tub.  Are you sure if bags leak, that they won't stain?  Is there some sort of remover if they do (bleach?)?  BTW, my husband just went & verified our water heater temp and it actually is set to 140°F.  That should help a little...

Thanks for the suggestions!!
Susan

The dye wants cellulose to bind to. No permanent stains to your tub, but do not underestimate the mess that handling dye and dyed items can make.

[fiberartist219]

My tub is not porcelain, but I do have some dye stains in it (and my bathroom sink too). All you have to do to get rid of them is spray them with bleach, let it sit for a minute, and then wipe off. If there is any remaining color, you can use comet or bar keepers friend to scrub it off. I do this just before people come over so they don't see weird colors and think I killed an alien in my bathroom.

[Susan]

Awesome!  Using the tub will definitely be easier.   I placed my order to Dharma last night (I chose to go w/them b/c they had cute clothing items as well as the dyes, etc.).  I got a notice they shipped today... WOW...that was fast.  I can't wait till the baby shower.  I'm praying that it doesn't rain, b/c it would be so much easier outside.  Oh well... no worries....Thanks again to everyone!!  I couldn't have done this w/o you!!    Susan