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DYEING: more secrets

© Lili Pintea-Reed

More Secrets by Lili Pintea-Reed

Last week we discussed how mixing a cellulose fiber like cotton with a protein fiber like silk could add zip and adventure to the process of dyeing. While acid dyes will color protein fibers it won't color cellulose so you can mix, or ply the fibers and expect to reveal different colors. For instance, my tencel plyed with wool sweater was dyed blue with an acid dye. This colored the wool blue but left the tencel white. Well, once it was rinsed!

Then I used a procion dye in lavender. It tinted the blue wool to purple and dyed the tencel a nice shade of light lavender, This effect was much nicer than the tan ragg look I had before.

You can apply these over dye principles to other projects which don't turn out as you like, or to refresh a look on an older garment.

I made several pairs of silk/mohair socks for people as gifts. One strand was baby blue silk and the other was white mohair. It was an OK blue speckled ragg effect, but I was not satisfied with it. For a friend who plans to run several marathons in my gift socks I decided a darker color would show soil less and be more fun. I over dyed the blue speckles with red! Yes deeeeeep pure jungle red! It turned out just wonderful! The socks are a deep red speckled in a purple from the red/blue mix in the silk.

My friend just loves them, and her husband thinks they are so funny.Running socks are supposed to be utilitarian I guess. I hope she runs lots of races in them.

But this just proves that skill with the dye pot can save mediocre projects and make them fun and interesting.

So experiment with projects you are less than happy with.