Hand-Dyeing Hubby

After looking at the Hancock hit lit that Sandy posted I was really
disappointed. Hancock's carried a line of handdye fabrics that I loved.
Anytime that DH was taking a trip where there was a Hancock's I would save
money like crazy so I could stock up. Well, the two stores within a 3-hour
drive are closing (they are the nearest) and many of the others that I
frequent are closing. So I'm left with a couple of alternatives. Pay the
high price of LQS handdyes or do my own.

When I mentioned buying the stuff and dying my own fabric DH looked at me
and without missing a beat says "I'll help you." I looked at him in shock
and said "Are you serious?" He said "Sure. I won't have as much time as you
but I'd love to give it a try." What a total sweetheart. So we spent the
next couple of hours looking at my Dharma Trading Company catalog, figuring
costs and deciding how to get started. Woohoo. Do I have a keeper or
what!!!?!!!

I have to go into the city next week to see my cardiologist and afterwards
he's taking me to PA for what will probably me my last trip to a Hancock's
until I visit my family in Arkansas again. After figuring up the costs, we
decided for me to split my money between Hancock's and the products to start
our own handdyeing.

Now I have a couple of questions for all you handdye experts. I know the
best fabric to use is the PFD but I'm wondering if the muslin from say
JoAnn's would be ok to use until I get the hang of it. Would bleached or
unbleached be the best? I know I'll have more questions as I go but this
will get me started. Thanks everyone.

Hugs,
Mika

Hi Mika,You are a lucky gal to have a dh like yours!I would go for the
bleached and put it through a really hot wash before you try! It will get
you the hang of it! Good luck and let us know how you get on!
--
Estelle UK
http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/gal.../ph//my_photos

"Mika" wrote in message
...
After looking at the Hancock hit lit that Sandy posted I was really
disappointed. Hancock's carried a line of handdye fabrics that I loved.
Anytime that DH was taking a trip where there was a Hancock's I would save
money like crazy so I could stock up. Well, the two stores within a 3-hour
drive are closing (they are the nearest) and many of the others that I
frequent are closing. So I'm left with a couple of alternatives. Pay the
high price of LQS handdyes or do my own.

When I mentioned buying the stuff and dying my own fabric DH looked at me
and without missing a beat says "I'll help you." I looked at him in shock
and said "Are you serious?" He said "Sure. I won't have as much time as
you but I'd love to give it a try." What a total sweetheart. So we spent
the next couple of hours looking at my Dharma Trading Company catalog,
figuring costs and deciding how to get started. Woohoo. Do I have a keeper
or what!!!?!!!

I have to go into the city next week to see my cardiologist and afterwards
he's taking me to PA for what will probably me my last trip to a Hancock's
until I visit my family in Arkansas again. After figuring up the costs, we
decided for me to split my money between Hancock's and the products to
start our own handdyeing.

Now I have a couple of questions for all you handdye experts. I know the
best fabric to use is the PFD but I'm wondering if the muslin from say
JoAnn's would be ok to use until I get the hang of it. Would bleached or
unbleached be the best? I know I'll have more questions as I go but this
will get me started. Thanks everyone.

Hugs,
Mika

Mika: Well, I don't have answers to your questions, but
I am loving your topic line! Hand Dying your Husband,
eh? Tie dye guy?
PAT, ROFL in VA.USA

Mika wrote:
After looking at the Hancock hit lit that Sandy posted I was really
disappointed. Hancock's carried a line of handdye fabrics that I loved.
....cut...

When I mentioned buying the stuff and dying my own fabric DH looked at me
and without missing a beat says "I'll help you." ...cut...

"Mika" wrote in message
...
Now I have a couple of questions for all you handdye experts. I know the
best fabric to use is the PFD but I'm wondering if the muslin from say
JoAnn's would be ok to use until I get the hang of it. Would bleached or
unbleached be the best? I know I'll have more questions as I go but this
will get me started. Thanks everyone.


First off, you can hand dye almost ANY fabric. The differences you'll notice
are in how nice the fabric is to sew with, how intense of a color you can
dye, and how clear (vs. how muddy) the final color is. Buy a yard or two of
a couple different muslins, dye them up, and see what you like.
White-on-whites are a lot of fun, too.

Dharma will send you little (and I do mean little) swatches of their fabrics
for 25 cents each. A couple of times they've been really nice and sent them
to me at no charge. When I'm testing different fabrics for dyeing, I take a
little swatch of each, number them with a sharpie, and dump them all in the
same dye bath and swish them around good. I usually use a very strong
turquoise, because it will tell me a lot about how intense and how clear the
color turns out.

My local JoAnns used to carry Kona PFD, which was wonderful for dyeing. I
didn't like their plain muslins so much because I am usually going after
clear colors. Dharma also carries the Kona PFD at a reasonable price. But my
all time favorite is Test Fabric's 400M cotton.
(http://www.testfabrics.com/products/fabrics.htm) It's really reasonably
priced, dyes up great, and is a joy to sew with. IIRC, Test Fabrics was also
very nice about sending me swatches to test.

HTH!

--
Kathy A. (Woodland, CA)
Queen of Fabric Tramps

http://fabrictramp.typepad.com/fabric_tramping/
remove the obvious to reply

Mika wrote:
snip
Now I have a couple of questions for all you handdye experts. I know
the best fabric to use is the PFD but I'm wondering if the muslin
from say JoAnn's would be ok to use until I get the hang of it. Would
bleached or unbleached be the best? I know I'll have more questions
as I go but this will get me started. Thanks everyone.

I'm pretty sure I've seen PFD fabric at JoAnn's.
--
Jeri
"Change is inevitable, except from vending machines."

In article ,
"Mika" wrote:

After looking at the Hancock hit lit that Sandy posted I was really
disappointed. Hancock's carried a line of handdye fabrics that I loved.
Anytime that DH was taking a trip where there was a Hancock's I would save
money like crazy so I could stock up. Well, the two stores within a 3-hour
drive are closing (they are the nearest) and many of the others that I
frequent are closing. So I'm left with a couple of alternatives. Pay the
high price of LQS handdyes or do my own.

When I mentioned buying the stuff and dying my own fabric DH looked at me
and without missing a beat says "I'll help you." I looked at him in shock
and said "Are you serious?" He said "Sure. I won't have as much time as you
but I'd love to give it a try." What a total sweetheart. So we spent the
next couple of hours looking at my Dharma Trading Company catalog, figuring
costs and deciding how to get started. Woohoo. Do I have a keeper or
what!!!?!!!

I have to go into the city next week to see my cardiologist and afterwards
he's taking me to PA for what will probably me my last trip to a Hancock's
until I visit my family in Arkansas again. After figuring up the costs, we
decided for me to split my money between Hancock's and the products to start
our own handdyeing.

Now I have a couple of questions for all you handdye experts. I know the
best fabric to use is the PFD but I'm wondering if the muslin from say
JoAnn's would be ok to use until I get the hang of it. Would bleached or
unbleached be the best? I know I'll have more questions as I go but this
will get me started. Thanks everyone.

Hugs,
Mika


Mika, I know *nothing* about dyeing fabrics, but I'm wishing you lots of
luck and lots of fun doing this along with your DH.

--
Sandy in Henderson, near Las Vegas
sfoster 1 (at) earthlink (dot) net (remove/change the obvious)
http://home.earthlink.net/~sfoster1

I'm with you Sandy but we might have to kidnap that DH of Mika's if
his fabric comes out well. What a man! : )
TAria

Sandy wrote:


Mika, I know *nothing* about dyeing fabrics, but I'm wishing you lots of
luck and lots of fun doing this along with your DH.

I've done plenty of dyeing with muslin - both bleached and unbleached.

Linda
PATCHogue, NY

On Fri, 30 Mar 2007 11:28:27 -0400, "Mika"
wrote:

Now I have a couple of questions for all you handdye experts. I know the
best fabric to use is the PFD but I'm wondering if the muslin from say
JoAnn's would be ok to use until I get the hang of it. Would bleached or
unbleached be the best? I know I'll have more questions as I go but this
will get me started. Thanks everyone.
Linda
PATCHogue, NY

In article ROdPh.1939$bM1.756@trnddc03,
Taria wrote:

I'm with you Sandy but we might have to kidnap that DH of Mika's if
his fabric comes out well. What a man! : )
TAria

Sandy wrote:


Mika, I know *nothing* about dyeing fabrics, but I'm wishing you lots of
luck and lots of fun doing this along with your DH.



Okay, Taria -- I'm in!

--
Sandy in Henderson, near Las Vegas
sfoster 1 (at) earthlink (dot) net (remove/change the obvious)
http://home.earthlink.net/~sfoster1

On Fri, 30 Mar 2007 11:28:27 -0400, Mika wrote:
Now I have a couple of questions for all you handdye experts. I know the
best fabric to use is the PFD but I'm wondering if the muslin from say
JoAnn's would be ok to use until I get the hang of it. Would bleached or
unbleached be the best? I know I'll have more questions as I go but this
will get me started. Thanks everyone.

You'll probably prefer the colors you get with bleached muslin, and really
prefer mercerized cotton -- much deeper than the colors on just plain
cottons. PDF is nice because you don't have to do
do the scouring, etc.

Enjoy. Have fun. Make mistakes.

Good book for initial tries: Ann Johnston: Color by Accident. Your library
may already have it. And you can contain all the mess in a sink quite nicely.

And when you wind up with ugly fabrics (there will be some), either cut them
up into small patches or overdye them with something else. What's ugly with
one dyeing often becomes gorgeous with 2-3 trips through the dye bath.

Jim Kankula showed a method of marbling fabric with fiber reactive dyes
(like Procion MX) on a bed of shaving cream on one of his appearances on
Simply Quilts:
http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/dc_fabrics_...93,HGTV_3390_1
396417,00.html (paste together URL or click on:
http://tinyurl.com/rbdk

The photos in the URL don't do justice to what can be done:
http://www.dharmatrading.com/html/eng/1498922-AA.shtml

Kay