Colorfast Hand Dyed Fabrics

See Vicki Welsh's blogpost here  - her process for getting all the excess dye from the handdyes she sells.

"Briefly, my process (after first rinsing excess dye/soda ash) involves soaking the fabrics overnight in hot water with Synthrapol (or other detergent) instead of repeated wash and rinse cycles. My experience tells me that the long exposure to water is better at leaching out all of the excess dyes than repreated washign and rinsing."

 "... the water is very dark after 12 hours and that may worry some people. As long as all of the fabric is submerged under water AND you have detergent in the water (I use about 1/8 - 1/4 cup for about 10 yards of fabric), the dyes will not reattach to other fabrics. I rinse bright yellow and pastels with every other color and have never had a problem."



Steam iron releases dye onto cotton for poorly processed pieces

Overdyes processed with Vicki's technique - no dyes released with steam iron

See here, too, for more on the process.

dyes released in water after measured soak times - shows longer soaks release more excess dyes

(I'll be reprocessing my fabrics today!)

...all photos from Vicki's blog...

dyeing - Belinda's results

Dyeing - Jackie's results...

cotton embroidered tray cloth

linen embroidered bag

decrepit embroidered cotton hankie

1/2 heavy linen pillowcase

the other 1/2 linen pillowcase

bit o' everything

love this trim

More bit o' everything

Mildly blotchy rayon scarf

Boca Prayer Flags

Here are my washed pieces. The deep purple silk piece (now a maroonish) is on the lowest rung laying on a piece of linen, the fuschia scarf is exactly that even though I thought I used the other red;  the kinda streaky one turned out pretty much like I had hoped! The reds are still running a little bit - hoping for some real rain.

Dye (fabric coloring) Day - jackie's - May 15