Bamboo Tees-HELP!

[BB]

Has anyone dyed bamboo tees?  I just tried a couple of shirts and am extremely disappointed after rinsing them. I wrapped them on a pole and applied black, let them sit for 24 hours and started rinsing them out and all the white areas picked up various shades from the black and won't rinse out even when using synthropol. The odd thing is, I did a cotton shirt at the same time and it is fine. Has anyone experienced this with bamboo? It seem that the second the runoff water hits the shirt, it is permanently stained.  If anyone has suggestions, let me know! I love the feel of the bamboo and I want to be able to do intricate work on them. I think I can salvage these by overdying but it's not what I was going for.

[pburch]

Use hot water for washout (after a rinse in cool water). Check it with a thermometer to make sure it's at least 140°F. Boiling water is even more efficient.

Paula

[BB]

The water was pretty hot. Next time I think I'll just put a big pot on the stove and throw them in the boiling water. Thanks Paula.

[deb]

Were the shirts wet (damp) or dry when you applied the dye? You might want to try one of each next time and see if it makes a difference. I'm also wondering if a higher temperature during batching might help contain the spread of the different hues, especially the blues.

[BB]

The shirts were dry and had been soda soaked when I applied the dye. The color didn't spread until I started the rinsing process. I got nice tight, beautiful, well defined lines...but as I rinsed, the dye stuck to the shirts and made a mess.

One thing I did do different is I dissolved the sodium alginate in alcohol first to eliminate the clumping. (It worked really well, by the way.) I wonder if this could have something to do with it..but then again, there was no problem with the cotton shirt.

Cotton and bamboo were treated exactly the same so I was just wondering if there is a 'trick' when dying bamboo...besides raising the water temp on the rinse water, which I will try next time...just trying to avoid wasting time and $.

[pburch]

How warm were the shirts, when you left the dye to react on them for twenty-four hours?

Severe backstaining suggests the dyes had not completed reacting by the time of wash-out, which could happen if they're below 70°F for much of the reaction time.

I haven't dyed bamboo rayon t-shirts, but the bamboo rayon socks I've dyed have had no problems at all with backstaining.  (When the manufacturer says the fiber is bamboo, they mean rayon.)

-Paula

[BB]

The tag says 70% bamboo and 30% cotton, but you think it's rayon? I have read where they use bamboo pulp instead of the fibers to make some of the bamboo clothing. these have a nice stretch to them, maybe because of the cotton.

It has been very cold here in Florida so maybe that is part of the problem. Also, I thickened the dye quite a bit so that might have also contributed to the problem.

Thanks for all the input. I've attached photos of the final outcome

[deb]

When I batch my stuff in Winter, I'll nuke it nice and hot and then let it finish batching either on a heating pad on my kitchen counter (it shuts off automatically after 2 hours tho) or I set the whole wrapped item on top of my heat register and cover it with a towel and come back for it that evening if it was an AM project or the next morning if it was a PM project. Summer is easier: put outside on the deck in the sun for an hour or three! LOL (OK, in reality, 3-5 hours is usually more than enough on a DC summer day!)

[ecilA]

If you hadn't seen white in those areas prior to washout I'd say that it is what we refer to as haloing.  Was that a red or a purple?  It looks very much like the turquoise bleed from blue-violet when using dry fabric.