Dying to Dye

Dying fabrics:

A few days ago I was lucky enough to win 5 dyes of my choice from Dylon in a contest they were running through their Facebook group. I have to admit that I have not used dyes before. I recall having bought one during my university days with the intention of dying a few fading clothes, but never got around to it.

So I got to thinking about dyes, how do they work and what could I use my winning dyes for. So I decided to research dyes and share the information with you through my blog. Plus i’d appreciate any tips that you’d like to leave in the comments!

So from my research this is what I have gathered as dye basics:

-Commercial dyes work best on natural fibres. Cotton, linen & viscose take dye well and should turn to the full colour on the packet.

-Synthetics such as polyester and nylon do not take dye well, they require disperse dyes.

-Wool and silk can be dyed but should be done by hand and not by machine.

-The paler the fabric the better the results

-Black dye can be used to re-darken faded blacks

-You can’t dye anything white

-Stains don‘t disappear when you when you dye things. Because it starts out a different colour than the rest of the fabric it tends to end up a different colour too.

-If you dye patterned fabrics you can see the pattern through the dyed fabric.

-You should clean fabrics before you dye them.

-Polyester thread will retain its original colour

-You create the tie-dye effect by stopping the dye from reaching certain parts of the fabric, by tying the fabric with string, rubber bands etc.

-You can remove dyes by bleaching fabrics.

-Types of dying include immersion, tie-dye, batik, drip-dye and LWI

I opted for machine dyes, but still haven’t quite decided what to do with them. Please feel free to make suggestions...

Plus Dylon will be contributing articles to the site so keep posted for some great projects and ideas from them.