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In painting, a tint is achieved by adding white paint to any pure hue. With a bit of white an intense magenta becomes rose, add some more and it becomes pink. But painting is adding color that lays on the external surface of the substrate, be it wood, or canvas or fabric. In dyeing, we are adding a dye that penetrates the fibers, and then (with the addition of Soda Ash) is permanently linked to the fiber through something called a covalent bond.
Dyeing creates fabric that is colored all the way through, there is no “wrong side” of dyed fabric, and one of the reasons it is preferred by fabric artists who do fused appliqué with is that the cut edges are the same color as the rest of the piece, so there is no tiny flash of white around the edge.
Because they lay upon the surface, paints can be layered, and one hue can cover a hue that is underneath. Dyeing is completely different: it binds to receptive sites in the cellulose fiber that our cotton fabric is made from and adds to the color of the fiber, but doesn’t cover it up. Thus, if you start with a fabric that isn’t white, you will have to take into account the color of the base fabric. If the fabric is a light off white (like unbleached muslin) its effect on the final color will in most cases be negligible. But you could never take red fabric and dye it blue, the blue that you added would add to the red and you would have purple.
One of the most exciting things that make dyeing fabric
my preferred way to color cloth is the visual texture I can easily achieve. The way I accomplish this is called Low Water Immersion Dyeing (LWI). A traditional dyebath (called full immersion) has a high volume of colored liquid and the cloth must be kept moving through it during the dye process. When complete, the fabric will be one even color. In LWI, the fabric is wet with just enough dye and soda ash solution and then physically manipulated in some way such that there are nooks, crannies and/or folds of all sorts for the dye particles to move in different ways before finally bonding to the fiber. What we’re left with is a glorious visual texture that is always unique, emphasizing the hand-made-ness of the fabric, and when used, helps the observer’s eye travel around the piece, which is usually a desired effect.
So when we want to make lighter, more pastel versions of a particular hue, we add water to the dye and then add it to our physically manipulated fabric. The less dye in the liquid, the more the white of the fabric can still be visible, thus the lighter the created tint.
Tints are a great place to start your fabric dyeing journey, because you only have to deal with one hue at a time. It’s also a great way try out new colors of dye. I recommend starting with the 3 primary colors. There are 3 or 4 versions of each primary color made and readily purchased from dye houses. For this class, I have chosen 3 primary color pure dyes that are easy to work with, some pure dyes are a bit temperamental. They are:
| Color | Code | Color Index Name | Dharma’s name | PROchem’s name |
Yellow | yellow MX-8G | yellow 86 | PR1 lemon yellow | #108 sun yellow |
“Red” | red MX-5B | red 2 | PR12 light red | #305 mixing red |
Blue | blue MX-R | blue 4 | PR26 sky blue | #400 basic blue |
When you take a look at any site selling Procion MX dyes, you will see a long list of colors. The vast majority of them are mixtures made from the “pure dyes” I keep referring to, and often times some sort of neutral filler so that there will be less color on the finished fiber. These mixes for the most part change over time, and are unique to each company. As you will see when you begin mixing dyes in session 3, combining 2 pure dyes that are primary colors gives you lots of clear, bright, secondary hues. When you DON’T use pure dyes, you may inadvertently be adding colors that aren’t immediately apparent from the dye, but have an effect on the final color when you mix it with others. It has a confounding factor that is unnecessary. Plus, those filler they add so you can get lighter colors? Better to just use less dye!
To summarize: Using pure dyes is simpler and cheaper.
| Color | Code | Amount Needed | Dharma’s name | PROchem’s name |
Yellow | yellow MX-8G | 2/3 cup or 160 ml | PR1 lemon yellow | #108 sun yellow |
“Red” | red MX-5B | 2/3 cup or 160 ml | PR12 light red | #305 mixing red |
Blue | blue MX-R | 2/3 cup or 160 ml | PR26 sky blue | #400 basic blue |
A word about safety: all the chemicals we use are as safe as or safer than the stuff you use cleaning the bathroom. That being said, Procion MX in powder MUST be treated with RESPECT. It has never been tested for consumption, so you must scrupulously avoid the possibility of ingesting it. Any tool you use for dyeing should never be returned to your kitchen for cooking purposes. (Look on the bright side: this gives you the perfect excuse to re-purpose older kitchen utensils for dyeing and get some new ones for the kitchen!)
Procion MX is a very fine powder, and should not be allowed to come in contact with your skin or mucous membranes (especially your lungs). Prolonged exposure to the powder could cause your body to develop a severe allergic response to the dye, such that you could never use it again. As “prolonged exposure” is different for everyone, you have to minimize contact with the powder: Thus always wear a particulate filter mask and rubber or latex gloves when around the powder form of Procion MX and clean up any spills immediately! Common sense also tells us to wear old fabric you don’t mind getting dye on, just in case.
We’ve already discussed preparing your fabric in session 1, so this is just a short reminder:
As, there’s nothing prettier than stacks of freshly dyed fabric! There are even more over at the gallery page!
Don’t forget to add your swatches to your swatch book! Print a new version of your worksheet onto cardstock and fill in the appropriate spaces. Cut a representative sample out of each piece and use glue, double sticky tape or staples to mount it to the cardstock. Inserting this into a plastic page protector will keep those swatches from being ripped off when you’re using your notebook later on.
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