Add Some Color

The flowers in our yard are really blooming now, adding some much needed color to this grayish brown time of year. This true sign of spring has definitely boosted my mood and energy levels and given me new inspiration. After weeks of telling Lena, "I think I'll dye today" (which always drove her crazy, since she heard it as "I think I'll die today"), yesterday I finally did it. I dyed. This is the pile of clothes and diapers that needed some help in the color department:

I have dyed things (clothes, cloth bags, fabric) several times now, but not enough that I feel like I really know what I'm doing. There is always a frantic and disorganized search for directions, bins to do the dyeing in, or some forgotten ingredient. This time around, I thought I'd be well prepared, and I started getting things ready two weeks before I actually ended up doing the dyeing. But still, there was a last-minute bike ride to the grocery store for huge quantities of salt because I'd forgotten just how much was required.

Ingredients for dyeing:
- Dye (2 TBS of each color)
- Water (6 gallons per container of dye)
- Salt (1 cup per gallon of water)
- Soda Ash (the fixer, 1/3 cup per 3 gallons of water)
- Synthrapol (special detergent that makes the dye not bleed)
- Platic bins (at least 10 gallon capacity each)
- Apron
- Rubber Gloves
- Dust Mask
- Bowls/buckets for mixing
- Plastic/metal utensils for stirring the dye
- A well-ventilated space
- A sleeping baby
<-- Here I am, all decked out and ready to dye!

My least favorite part of the dyeing process is mixing the powdered dye with water. This is because my mother (a textile artist) has scared me about the toxicity of the dye in its powdered form. The dye is sold as "safe and easy," but on the container it does say that one of the ingredients has been proven to cause cancer. Once it is in liquid form, it is not so much of an issue because you can't really inhale it anymore. But when the dye is still powder, I wear a dust mask and try not to breathe.

The other challenge I was faced with this time, since it was my first time dyeing outside, was getting the warm water from the kitchen to the bins. I had a two-gallon bucket, so each bin of dye required 3 trips inside for water. Here's the dye set-up:

Adding the clothes to the dye is the most fun part, though it always feels a bit crazy and haphazard. I was also dyeing some clothing items for a few friends, and I was trying to remember which colors they wanted things as I tossed them into the various buckets. The colors I used were: sunrise red, tangerine, deep yellow, brilliant blue, and plum.

After I got everything well saturated in dye, I spent about 20 minutes going from bin to bin, stirring things up. Ideally, you would stir the dye continuously, but I just don't see how that's possible (unless you're only doing one color at a time or have more than one person doing the dyeing). Letting it sit can cause the dye to color the fabric unevenly.

The next stage involves mixing the soda ash with water and adding it to the dye baths. You are supposed to add it in three separate doses over 15 minutes, but I couldn't manage to do the math for that (2/3 cup divided by 3? I do love calculus, but I never really mastered fractions), so I decided to just add it in two doses. Soda Ash is a chemical, so I donned the mask yet again and also tried to make sure that I was upwind of the powder (which can be an eye irritant). After I got all the soda ash added, Zeben woke up. Thank goodness he didn't wake up any earlier! After a banana and some nursing, he was happy to play in the sandbox while I worked at emptying the dye bins and rinsing the dye out of the fabric.

It took a couple of hours to get everything cleaned up and in the washing machine, but there were no major spills, and I didn't even get any dye on my hands. Here is the pile of transformed items:

So much more colorful! These Hanna Andersson suits turned out great:
The one on the right was pink and white to begin with, and the one on the left was pink, white and lime. They were fine before, but I LOVE them now! And the stains are much less noticeable. I also love the way these swaddlebees pocket fitted diapers turned out:

They were all periwinkle on the outside, and natural on the inside before the dyeing. I love how a few of them ended up two-toned, and I love the way the periwinkle mixed with the dye. These Little Beetle Hemp fitted diapers also turned out really well:

They were all natural colored before, and now they're so much more fun! The dye did an excellent job covering up all the stains as well.

It was so great to go to bed last night feeling so accomplished. I think there will be more dyeing to come in the next few weeks. I have some more ideas up my sleeve, and I want to try some other colors (the only bummer this time around was that the tangerine and the sunrise red ended up being nearly identical, and the deep yellow turned out looking a bit like neon orange. It's pretty intense).

I'm also looking forward to more color outside in the weeks to come as the flowering trees and bushes get ready to bloom! This is my most favorite time of year.