Direct Application/Soda Soak: Wet dry or in between?

[steve]

How do you like your soda soaked garments/fabric when you apply dye?

I like mine bone dry even though it can be tough to get the dye to move through the fabric. Additionally, I go through incredible amounts of dye this way--I've gone through over 24 ounces with larger sized shirts with bleeds--but I LOVE the results.

Anyone else?

Steve

[pburch]

I've never met a form of soda ash application I didn't like (except for the inconvenience of having dye go bad within a couple of hours if the soda ash is added directly to the dye).

Paula

[Kathy]

I apply dye to pretty dry fabric to very slightly damp.
I have to agree to Paula though, I can't do the activated dye. I usually end up wasting dye with this method.
Usually I dye in spurts and like to have a selection of dye in case I get an urge to use a color that I hadn't planned on prior.

However, I do like to activate the dye when I am working with others/kids teaching them to dye.

Kathy

[ecilA]

It really depends on what I'm trying to accomplish.  It's all about effects.

[mysticmountainsmama]

I'm working damper. I gently hand wring the already tied stuff then I set it in a bin on an angle and squeeze the bottom again before dying...I love the way colours mingle when theres water to carry them. I don't see activation as an option now (too much pressure!!) but I'm sure I'll try it one day.

[John]

BOGUS VOTE!!!

There is no option for both!!

BOGUS!!! DO OVER!! WAH!!!    

[lwemmer]

Hi. I'm been learning a lot on here and am trying to improve the results I get with my rainbow spiral. This thread has me wondering what kind of difference you get with a drier shirt vs. a wetter shirt with a rainbow spiral, for example. I've been dying when shirts are quite wet/not very well wrung out. Also, Steve, I'm interested to know how you dry your shirts to bone dryness once soaked and tied and how long the process takes. I left a wet but not soda soaked tied shirt sitting for three days because I got interrupted and didn't have time to dye it. When I got back to it, it was still damp but it smelled moldy and I was worried I had ruined the shirt.

Thanks in advance,
Lauren

[mysticmountainsmama]

When I tie too much and the shirts will have to stay wet a few days I put them in the fridge...

[tiedyejudy]

I think climate has a lot to do with how much time it takes for the garment to thoroughly dry.  I live in the north part of Arizona... not as hot as the desert part of the state, but we still get hot days in the early part of the summer.  I have put tied and soaked items on a drying rack in June, and 2 days later they are bone dry.  In July (monsoon season) it might take a few days longer, because we have rain almost daily.  I prefer my items to be slightly damp, rather than bone dry, so I try to schedule my soda soak for far enough in advance to make sure just excess moisture evaporates.  I find the colors come out more vibrant if the shirts aren't soaking wet when I apply the dye.

Judy

[pburch]

I like to dye my shirts pretty wet, just squeezed out, probably because I make my dye solutions pretty concentrated so they come out dark enough anyway. But something many people recommend, Lauren, is spinning the soaked shirt out in the washer, just setting it to the spin part of the cycle without any rinsing, to get excess moisture out. This would speed the drying quite a bit. I suppose you'd have to be careful to balance the tied shirts by distributing them carefully around the sides of the tub in the washing machine.

Paula

[Snugglebug]

I'm still too scared to activate my dye, it soda ash soak for me.

In regards to how damp or dry, I've found it really depends upon the fabric I'm working with.  When doing t-shirts I will usually spin in the washer a couple of times, balancing them on edge along the wall of the tub.  There's still enough moisture to spread the color a bit, but not so much that there is too much white.  I've done alot of scrub tops recently.  With that type of material, it really takes the color better bone dry.  When wet, the colors REALLY bleed and it's not always pretty 

[Anna]

I have to say that I love to dye dry.  I like the control you have over where the dye goes, but I prefer working on mandalas and shapes and lotus blossoms and other patterns that depend on fairly distinct lines.  Of course, then I have to be patient and wait for it to dry...

Anna

[Mad Dog]

"...I  like the control you have over where the dye goes, but I prefer working on mandalas and shapes and lotus blossoms and other patterns that depend on fairly distinct lines..."

I wanted to reread this post to see if I had misread it.

I tried my first mandala last night on a cotton bandana, thinking it was not too large or too small to work with.  Another total disaster!  I ended up dying the entire piece a single color.  I had no control at all. 

 I soaked the cotton bandana  in soda ash 2 weekends ago, then let it air dry  until it was bone dry.  It was the  first piece I attempted to dye dry.  I had a syringe, so I tried to only apply small drops, but when the dye hit the fabric, the fabric soaked it up like a sponge, dye spread outward, very far, very quickly, but not downward, into the folds.  After a few attempts, i had more or less covered the entire top peice of fabric with a single color, with little bleed into the fold under that, and nothing beyond.

After pondering it overnight, I wonder if it might be an issue with dye thickness?    Since I'm new to dying, I've been using Dharma's itty bitty dye kit, w/premixed dyes; urea, dye, etc are already pre-mixed in an applicator.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[ecilA]

Mad Dog, I'd ask how tightly that was tied.  I use thickener very rarely fwiw.  But I do tie tightly enough that even a single color mandala would show variation at the string lines.  Here's an example

[Mad Dog]

Hmm....  I thought it was tied very tight, but maybe not...  I went by Mike Fowler's DVD, which appeared to have the cotton tied tightly, but not with that much pressure.

When I tried it, I used a syringe, and as soon as a single drop  of dye hit the dry fabric, it spread outward like ink on tissue paper.  I was shocked at how fast it bled, including under the string.  No downward bleed, only horizontal, and absolutely no ability to control what so ever.

I'm dying during the week of November, I'll have to try it again and really tighten that string.