Adventures in chemical dyes: golden yellow.
I am working on dyeing the 4 yards of linen into a nice golden yellow. Bought the dyes and chemicals at dharmatrading.com, and scrounged up my old dyeing cups, glass tubes, mask, rubber gloves, and whatnots.
Note to self and others on Procion Dye MX, the kind you use on cotton, hemp, linen etc.
1 big box (not the round container) of table salt = 6 cups of salt, not 8. Get 4 boxes when vat dyeing into your washing machine for the full load. Thankfully, I had more than just the one box I originally bought, and only 2.5 lbs of fabric to dye, and hence a smaller "vat" to worry about.
And when they mean HOT water for the soda ash, they meaning nearly boiling water! Once the water hit the soda ash, part of it melted (the top and a bit of the middle), and the rest became nearly solid. I spent the 15 minutes they tell you to add the soda ash into the vat chipping away at the hardened sludge in the cup with more and more very hot water. I think I used nearly 6-8 cups of very hot water working it. Thankfully, I also had a glass tube that I could use to chip away at the cup of sludge.
Now, it is time to wait, and to reset the agitator for the next hour. Here's hoping it comes out nice and golden, and with as little streaks as possible.
Note to self and others on Procion Dye MX, the kind you use on cotton, hemp, linen etc.
1 big box (not the round container) of table salt = 6 cups of salt, not 8. Get 4 boxes when vat dyeing into your washing machine for the full load. Thankfully, I had more than just the one box I originally bought, and only 2.5 lbs of fabric to dye, and hence a smaller "vat" to worry about.
And when they mean HOT water for the soda ash, they meaning nearly boiling water! Once the water hit the soda ash, part of it melted (the top and a bit of the middle), and the rest became nearly solid. I spent the 15 minutes they tell you to add the soda ash into the vat chipping away at the hardened sludge in the cup with more and more very hot water. I think I used nearly 6-8 cups of very hot water working it. Thankfully, I also had a glass tube that I could use to chip away at the cup of sludge.
Now, it is time to wait, and to reset the agitator for the next hour. Here's hoping it comes out nice and golden, and with as little streaks as possible.