Re-dying help

[dianaj]

Hello friends,

I know this has been discussed before but I can't find it in the Wiki.  I just did my second heart t-shirt.  The heart came out great but I didn't put enough color on the shirt.  Can I just resoak it in soda ash and add color.  Will the heart be ok if I just leave it alone?

Thanks
Diana

[ecilA]

Resoaking will result in some bleed.  I'm guessing Paula will show up shortly and explain this on a scientific level.  Anything I could tell you would only be a guess on my part.  Now you can go ahead and do it, just know that there will be bleeding (your soak water will get colorful) and your original colors may become altered slighty but it might be little enough that it doesn't affect it much.  But here's a thought, if you want to only redye part of it or even the whole thing, maybe just dampen it, refold and use activated dye to touch up instead.

[Marg]

I agree that re-dying with activated dye is the way to go, but in my experience, it's best to re-dye the entire garment, because you can usually tell which areas have been re-dyed and which haven't. Whenever I re-dye, I do the whole garment. Also, a lot of re-dying via low water immersion comes out nice. Good luck, Marg

[ecilA]

Yes, I'd imagine that would give best results.  I've never done any spot redying, any redying efforts I've tried has been redying the entire garment and you can do some neat stuff with it!

[ktaltre]

I re-tie and re-dye quite a bit.
When re-tying, I usually follow how I tied before and dye just what I feel needs to be dyed better.
Retie/dyeing a spiral, starting the spiral in a different spot on the piece often turns out very interesting.
Yes, colors may or will shift with overdyeing. One of my favorite shirts was retie/dyed - I used butterscotch and purple next to one another and found out that those two colors make a really excellent avocado/olive green.
I heard about butterscotch from someone on this list.
And, yes, LWI dying is probably the way to go for just a general one color overdye.
k. taltre