Monday, January 31, 2011

Dyeing Fabric

This project made me nervous, it's something I'd never done before.

I wanted a nice heavy duty fabric in plain black for a project we'll talk about tomorrow.  The only thing I could find was some heavy canvass but it looked like this.
I didn't want to wait around and try to find something so I figured I'd dye the fabric black.  I'd never done this before before but I'd read about it.  I knew trying to get a deep black might not happen so I was prepared for a light grey.

I washed my fabric and then I took this bottle

I filled my sink with hot water (I didn't want to use the washing machine because it's a front load and I rent) and dumped in the entire contents of the bottle.  I should have only need half but it said for dark colours double the quantity.  Scary looking hey?


I added my fabric and let it soak while I stirred and agitated for 40 minutes.


Looing good hey?
 When the 40 minutes was up I rinsed it really well and then washed and dried it.

The end result was not bad.  It sort of looks like an old black t-shirt, kind of faded.  For this project that'll be just fine but I think if I dyed it one more time I'd get an even better colour.


I would dye fabric again though, it wasn't as scary as I thought.

This post was long enough so come back tomorrow to see what I use the fabric for.

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