I brought disperse dyes at the Perth Craft show earlier this year. I wanted to be able to dye polyester based fabric, and procion dyes won't dye them. I didn't know much about them but was told all information was available on the website. When I first read about the time it took to boil them etc my first thoughts were very rude to say the least. I thought about setting up a gas stove outside under the carport, seeing we are in winter, and finally getting some rain. But I didn't want to spend hours boiling these dyes. They would be restricted to one colour, and to make any profit, I would have to sell them at a high price, as I often come across the attitude that home made or hand made isn't as good as store brought, isn't as good etc, and should be cheap.
This doesn't take into account any of the hours spent on making it. But that's another post!
But I wasn't thrilled with the idea. So as usual I decided to do it my way. Already doing my own dyeing with the procion dyes, I decided to try using this dye the same way, as what I wanted was multi coloured fabrics, and boiling wasn't going to achieve this.
So I wet my material in water, wrung it out as much as possible, and then scrunching it up, placed it in an pasta microwave dish, one specifically used only for this type of thing. Using a squirt bottle I squirted colours over the top randomly.
It didn't look much, but disperse dyes work on heat, so I wasn't too worried.
Now this is the good part, unlike procion dyes that need to sit to obtain depth of colour, disperse dyes just need heat so it seems. So I took them out to my outdoor, non cooking of food microwave. (Please don't do this inside, or use your food microwave, this is very important! I have a microwave specifically kept for my dyeing and craft. And there are fumes so take precautions). And I was able to microwave them then and there. I so love this!
To start off with I microwaved in 5 min bursts to see how the fabric reacted, then as it was ok I did it in 10 minute bursts, and the fabric was still ok.
I then let it cool, and drained it. My research showed that once dyes are used and heated they become non toxic, so are safe to dispose of, and as I was only using a small amount I felt it was ok to drain down the sink . Then I just put it into the washing machine and hung out to dry.
As I only had a small amount of dye powder I couldn't experiment more, but the results were very satisfying.
When I get more dye I will be using a filter system I set up for other liquids.
I have a large/tall bucket with holes in the bottom. I cut out a round piece of flywire and place in the bottom. Then a deep layer of sand, another layer of cat litter, also deep and then shredded paper or scrunched up newspapers, I then tip any liquid waste into this.
This filters out as much scraps, rubbish etc as possible. The paper/newspaper is put into the rubbish and replaced. I replace cat litter and sand when needed, more often if I am doing a lot of dyeing.
I was very happy with the results and this meant I could now dye material made with polyester. And as most of the silky, satin etc types of material are made from this these days, I will be able to sell this type of material now at a reasonable cost. and best of all I have many satin type fabrics to use in my own work, which was the point after all.
I also tried them using spritz bottles. I wet the material took it outside and placed it on a tray. I put peaks and folds, scrunched and generally made it look like my bed in the morning. I then spritzed it with the red/pink colour and the blue as I wanted shades of purple in it also. Don't panic if you cant see much colour, again its that type of dye. I then placed them into the microwave dish and heated/cooked them for 5 min.
The results were just glorious. Marbled fabric!
WARNING. Not all polyester material will work like this. There are some which seem to have a plastic type cotton and will melt. Try all materials first in small amounts or in just a few minutes at a time, and let cool in between.
Ps, I also do my procion dyes the same way.
Except I use icecream containers, rubbish bags in the containers, and leave them for a few days, depending on how busy I am. I heat set them by microwaving them for 10, or 15 minutes, depending on the amount of material in each batch.
At all times I am careful about the powders when transferring them into the containers for mixing. please do this in an area that has no breeze or on a windless day. In winter I do it in my kitchen with the fan extractor going.
First and second picture is the spritzing. The multi coloured is the batching in the containers. The third one is a large piece done (table seats 10) which is for sale.
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