ombre dying: tips from a fellow beginner
How to do a slightly better than slapdash job of ombré dying fabric:
I have a beautiful white cotton lawn dress with black embroidery on the bottom... that I never wear. I also recently thrifted a white cotton lawn blouse that needed to have some sort of lining installed to make it wearable--too sheer because of the white--so it sat in my sewing pile for a few weeks. Finally I decided it was time for a change, so I googled, bought dye and salt and went to work.
Since the skirt portion of the dress is pleated and rather full, I decided to go with tub dying. Basic supplies: a tub or other large container that isn't going to be used for food storage/prep later, rubber gloves, dye, salt, lots of hot water, lots of cool water, a plastic-handled broom (or other stick-like object to drape over the tub), binder clips.
just part of the equipment
Optional: a patio or back yard, garden hose with sprayer attachment, ratty clothes that you don't mind getting stained when you accidentally spill dye water on them.
I dug around and found a small-ish plastic storage bin. (It was holding sewing patterns.) It seemed like a good size--deep enough to hold the fabric, shallow enough to allow me to hoist the fabric up and down as needed. Dimensions: 16" X 10" X 11". You wouldn't need to duplicate that, I just figured that a general idea would be helpful.
To get the blue-turquoise color I wanted, I dissolved a whole package of RIT royal blue and half a package of RIT dark green powder dyes in a quart-sized jar of hot water, and put it to the side. I got the shirt and dress thoroughly wet and set them to the side as well. Then I filled the plastic bin about halfway full of very hot water (a mixture of tap hot water and a kettle I had placed on the stove earlier) and a cup of salt.
I mixed in about a third* of the dye-water mixture from the jar with the hot salty water in the bin, put on rubber gloves and plunged the fabric into the bin. Then I put the plastic-handled broom across the top of the bin, grabbed the edge of the clothing that I wanted to keep the lightest color and attached them to the broom handle with binder clips.
THERE IS NO DYE IN THIS PICTURE. This is a reenactment. I'm not doing this again yet because I'm stingy and don't feel like it I'm environmentally conscious.
As you raise more fabric out, you'll have to clip it to itself rather than directly to the broom handle. Unless you have even larger binder clips than I do. (I'm a teacher. I get all the cool supplies, like enormous binder clips.)
I added in a bit more dye to the bin and sloshed the clothing around to mix it up, left it for a few minutes... then repeated the process. Pull a bit more of the fabric up, clip it to itself, add a bit more dye to the water, leave it sitting for a few minutes, repeat repeat repeat.
*I should have done smaller amounts at the beginning. A third of the dye was really too much for the palest shade.
After finishing with the dye portion, I wrung as much excess dye out of the fabrics as I could and poured it down my stainless steel sink. (Worn porcelain and some plastics may get permanently stained; it's much better to use stainless steel for disposal purposes.) I rinsed and rinsed--light to dark, three bin-fulls of water, again disposed of via the stainless steel sink. At that point I felt like the dye was diluted enough that I could spray the clothes with the garden hose and not worry about damage to grass or plants.
Normal procedures for dyed clothing next: wash them with detergent. Try putting some white vinegar in the rinse as you would a fabric softener--it can set the color. (You will still want to avoid washing these clothes with lighter or very dissimilar colors in the future, though.)
Oh, and if you use your washing machine for the last step, it's a good idea to make sure it's properly rinsed as well. Run an empty load with bleach right away
My results:
The shirt had cotton lace, to my surprise. It soaked up the dye more than the fabric did.
Too bad I didn't do a trial run and make my mistakes then. But I'm impetuous and impatient environmentally conscious like that.
Sorry, no before or during photos.
Interestingly, even though I was using 'royal blue' and dark green for the color mix, I can see tiny traces of red here and there. (And yellow, though that's not as surprising.) It doesn't bother me; you wouldn't notice it unless you're looking for it.
Also interesting: when the fabric is wet, it looks quite green. When it's dry, it looks much more blue. Here's a close-up of lightest to darkest:
Summary, then, of what I would do differently: possibly I wouldn't add any dye at all until after pulling the first 'row' of fabric out of the bin. That would leave a greater contrast between the lightest and darkest colors. I would be careful to add smaller amounts in each time, especially early on.
That's it! Any questions for me?
I do have questions for you: 1) has anyone tried something like this spray-bottle technique? I imagine it would work well for smaller pieces of fabric. I haven't used Tulip brand dye yet, so I'm curious about the quality of their product.
2) Have any of you tried changing the color of lace or other trims (or even just fabrics themselves) with permanent marker? I'm tempted to 'color' the lace on the newly-dyed shirt to black, but I'm not sure how well that would work.
I have a beautiful white cotton lawn dress with black embroidery on the bottom... that I never wear. I also recently thrifted a white cotton lawn blouse that needed to have some sort of lining installed to make it wearable--too sheer because of the white--so it sat in my sewing pile for a few weeks. Finally I decided it was time for a change, so I googled, bought dye and salt and went to work.
Since the skirt portion of the dress is pleated and rather full, I decided to go with tub dying. Basic supplies: a tub or other large container that isn't going to be used for food storage/prep later, rubber gloves, dye, salt, lots of hot water, lots of cool water, a plastic-handled broom (or other stick-like object to drape over the tub), binder clips.
just part of the equipment
Optional: a patio or back yard, garden hose with sprayer attachment, ratty clothes that you don't mind getting stained when you accidentally spill dye water on them.
I dug around and found a small-ish plastic storage bin. (It was holding sewing patterns.) It seemed like a good size--deep enough to hold the fabric, shallow enough to allow me to hoist the fabric up and down as needed. Dimensions: 16" X 10" X 11". You wouldn't need to duplicate that, I just figured that a general idea would be helpful.
To get the blue-turquoise color I wanted, I dissolved a whole package of RIT royal blue and half a package of RIT dark green powder dyes in a quart-sized jar of hot water, and put it to the side. I got the shirt and dress thoroughly wet and set them to the side as well. Then I filled the plastic bin about halfway full of very hot water (a mixture of tap hot water and a kettle I had placed on the stove earlier) and a cup of salt.
I mixed in about a third* of the dye-water mixture from the jar with the hot salty water in the bin, put on rubber gloves and plunged the fabric into the bin. Then I put the plastic-handled broom across the top of the bin, grabbed the edge of the clothing that I wanted to keep the lightest color and attached them to the broom handle with binder clips.
THERE IS NO DYE IN THIS PICTURE. This is a reenactment. I'm not doing this again yet because I'm stingy and don't feel like it I'm environmentally conscious.
As you raise more fabric out, you'll have to clip it to itself rather than directly to the broom handle. Unless you have even larger binder clips than I do. (I'm a teacher. I get all the cool supplies, like enormous binder clips.)
I added in a bit more dye to the bin and sloshed the clothing around to mix it up, left it for a few minutes... then repeated the process. Pull a bit more of the fabric up, clip it to itself, add a bit more dye to the water, leave it sitting for a few minutes, repeat repeat repeat.
*I should have done smaller amounts at the beginning. A third of the dye was really too much for the palest shade.
After finishing with the dye portion, I wrung as much excess dye out of the fabrics as I could and poured it down my stainless steel sink. (Worn porcelain and some plastics may get permanently stained; it's much better to use stainless steel for disposal purposes.) I rinsed and rinsed--light to dark, three bin-fulls of water, again disposed of via the stainless steel sink. At that point I felt like the dye was diluted enough that I could spray the clothes with the garden hose and not worry about damage to grass or plants.
Normal procedures for dyed clothing next: wash them with detergent. Try putting some white vinegar in the rinse as you would a fabric softener--it can set the color. (You will still want to avoid washing these clothes with lighter or very dissimilar colors in the future, though.)
Oh, and if you use your washing machine for the last step, it's a good idea to make sure it's properly rinsed as well. Run an empty load with bleach right away
My results:
The shirt had cotton lace, to my surprise. It soaked up the dye more than the fabric did.
Too bad I didn't do a trial run and make my mistakes then. But I'm impetuous and impatient environmentally conscious like that.
Sorry, no before or during photos.
Interestingly, even though I was using 'royal blue' and dark green for the color mix, I can see tiny traces of red here and there. (And yellow, though that's not as surprising.) It doesn't bother me; you wouldn't notice it unless you're looking for it.
Also interesting: when the fabric is wet, it looks quite green. When it's dry, it looks much more blue. Here's a close-up of lightest to darkest:
Summary, then, of what I would do differently: possibly I wouldn't add any dye at all until after pulling the first 'row' of fabric out of the bin. That would leave a greater contrast between the lightest and darkest colors. I would be careful to add smaller amounts in each time, especially early on.
That's it! Any questions for me?
I do have questions for you: 1) has anyone tried something like this spray-bottle technique? I imagine it would work well for smaller pieces of fabric. I haven't used Tulip brand dye yet, so I'm curious about the quality of their product.
2) Have any of you tried changing the color of lace or other trims (or even just fabrics themselves) with permanent marker? I'm tempted to 'color' the lace on the newly-dyed shirt to black, but I'm not sure how well that would work.