Mixed Fiber Yarns - Acid dye or Fiber Reactive Dye?
I've done a decent amount of dye work. Not a lot, but decent.
I've dyed wool yarns with acid dyes (AD). I've dyed wool with fiber reactive dyes using vinegar and table salt. No problems, good results.
I've dyed cotton and linen with fiber reactive dye (FRD) after soaking the yarn in a soda ash bath. Beautiful.
But how do I do dye a yarn with mixed fiber? I have this beautiful 12/2 yarn that is 50% silk (protein fiber), 30% Merino (protein fiber), and 20% lyocell (cellulose fiber). Do I use AD (for protein fibers) or FRD (for cellulose fibers)?
Well, my initial thought was to use AD since the majority of the yarn is NOT plant based fiber. But then the economical side of my brain said, "Just use the FDRs, you'll save space and money" because I already have more FRD than AD. This is an important consideration and I decided to give it a try.
I had picked out the colors I wanted from Dharma's ADs, but they didn't quite equate in the FRD options, so I did some guesswork and mixed a few different ones hoping to get the shades I wanted.
I soaked 3, 25-gram hanks in a mixture of water and vinegar first to get them wet and saturated with the vinegar. While they soaked, I mixed up the dye solutions. Now, I've heard that the ratio of dye powder to water can be much less when using fiber reactive dyes on wool, but (a) I'm not sure of exactly how much less and (b) I am wanting some deep color, so I'm going to just go ahead with 1g total dye powder to 8oz of water, and will later test that with various dilutions. For now, I'm just testing dye adherence and color matching.
I first tried a technique I saw someone else do that did not require heat. After expressing excess vinegar:water out of a 25g hank, leaving it damp, I hand-painted the FRD solution onto the hank.
I let it set for awhile, and then rinsed. And rinsed. And rinsed........... I ended up putting it in a rinse of much warmer water with synthrapol and gave it a good long bath and that seemed to get most of the excess dye out, but there were still hints of color in the remaining washes. I lost count of the washes.
It ended up a very pastel, bleeding mess. It's pretty, but definitely not right or what I wanted. But at least the majority of the bleeding stopped.
While this hank had been hanging out in the bath water, I'd already painted up a second hank with some additional colors and decided it was definitely going to be heat set. And if I was putting the heat on, we were going to do a little more testing. I added the already painted hank into a pan with a bit of water and another splash of vinegar, but I also set up two more hanks to do my normal low immersion dye method. This is when I add the yarn to enough water that it's slightly submerged, and then add dye solution to various portions of the yarn. It's more movement in the color changes and is quite pretty, but not the same as hand painting a warp ready to go on the loom.
So I put the additional two hanks in my pan, added water and vinegar, let it soak, then added dye. Then I added heat. This cooktop heats up fast and FRD seems to just take faster than AD (maybe it's my imagination) so I usually add the dye before heat for this. After about 20 minutes, I remembered I usually add salt when used FRD on animal fibers, so I tossed in a bit of salt as well.
After 30 minutes of simmering (with covers), I turned off the heat and let them cool. This time, the first wash was in warm water with synthrapol. Bleeding commenced. Not as much as the first time, but a lot. It took far more rinsing than it should. Even in the past when I've used FRDs on wool, the rinsing has been just like rinsing ADs.
I do love the colors and while the bleeding is very minimal at this point, I still would like to see that water run clear. And the amount of bleeding just doesn't seem right. The water in the dye bath was crystal clear by the time the hanks were cool.
So now I have more questions. Is it that I have too much dye? Or.... is it the lyocell washing out because the dye can't fix to the plant fibers without changing the pH with soda ash?
I email Dharma. I cannot find any information in any of my groups about this blend or anything that addresses this specifically. Now, I've heard Dharma has excellent customer service, so I admit the response I received was a little disappointing. I basically was told what I already know, that lyocell needs soda ash. They did, however, mention that silk holds up pretty well to soda ash but the merino shouldn't be exposed to it for more than 30 minutes.
So I am proceeding with the next tests.
I started with 3 cups of water and 1 cup of vinegar. According to Dharma, I'm not using enough vinegar or salt for using FRD on wool or silk (https://www.dharmatrading.com/blogs/a/fiber-reactive-dye-dyeing-wool-silk). I've never needed to use this much vinegar, but I don't think it can hurt anything so I'll try it.
I soaked two more 25g hanks in this water:vinegar solution for about 30 minutes and it was well saturated. I pulled them out, removed excess water, and set them aside for a moment. I poured the "soaking" water back into a cup and added a few spoonfuls of salt to the mix and dissolved it. I then added the yarn and some water back into the pan and began adding the dye solutions back. I could probably have had less water in the pan to begin with, but I'm always worried I'm going to scorch the yarn! The heat is set to about 225 degrees F where I will give it 30 minutes. In addition to the dye bath, I've also set up another pan of water to heat at the same rate.
At 15 minutes, I went to check and remembered I'd also wanted to add synthrapol to the dye bath, so I made a little slurry and gently added it. After another 15 minutes, I was ready to move on to the next change but was surprised to see there were places that did not take up any dye. This was really different already. Now, when I did the last batch, I mostly poured dye into the bath from the cups, but this time I decided to spoon it in and it is possible it just wasn't enough. So I gently flipped over the hanks, and spooned some more dye on and checked again 10 minutes later.
This had me rethinking what I was going to do next. My plan originally was to remove one hank and place it into the clean water to rinse off the vinegar and immediately add soda ash water to the other hank. I read that adding them together is more of a neutralizer so I'm not sure if I should rinse it or not. But now.... now I'm thinking I might just let them cool completely in the dye bath, and then move on with rinsing one but leaving the other as is and putting them into totally new dye baths separately. I don't want to wash out dye unnecessarily if the soda ash is going to help fix it to the lyocell.
After about 30 minutes of rest, I went to take a peek and it was very cool (it's fall weather in Washington today!), so I removed them. I also checked a few various spots throughout the hanks and could see the dye had taken all the way through.
The first hank had excess water removed and placed into the bath that had been heated and cooled at the same rate as the dye bath to prevent felting; the second was expressed as well, but set into an empty dish. I then made a clean bath with soda ash and added them back in. I set a timer for 10 minutes and waited.
I tried to do a little video of the process, but I should have placed my iPad on the opposite side of the table to keep from blocking the view with my arms. So, sorry, it's the best I have, hahaha!
After 10 minutes, I checked it to see it was at a very low simmer and left it for another 10 minutes. Then I turned off the heat for 10 more minutes. The hanks were removed from the soda ash bath, water expressed, and then set aside for about 20 minutes to cool slightly.
Then rinsing began. The first rinse was in very warm water - to match the temperature of the yarn - with wool wash detergent and synthrapol. It was in the bath for 20-30 minutes. I was pretty pleased at the first rinse (the far left photo below). Dye definitely came out, but nothing like the other times. The second rinse still had some dye but I was getting excited. So excited that I forgot to take a picture! The third rinse (middle and far right photos below) was pretty great! I'd achieved in three rinses what took probably about 10 rinses the last time!
I am happy with this amount of dye still left because it will not be the last time I wash this and do not plan on using it with a white weft. I will use a color catcher in the final washing and see how that works since I normally do not find that they do any good when I was wool yarn with AD but they are amazing when I use them on cotton and linen yarns dyed with FRD. I took these to hang to dry and see what happens. The results were...
Meh....
The colors were not the same, more washed out than the first. The oranges were more soft browns... The reds are all pink.
So what happened. Well. Maybe it's the soda ash, but I don't know... I'm wondering if it was either (a) I had too much water for the immersion bath and the colors were too diluted, (b) the dye solutions had been sitting in open containers for nearly 48 hours at this point and might have lost some potency, or (c) a combination of both those things.
I threw out the dyes and skeined one more 25g hank and made some EXACT notes this time, just in case I found the unicorn.
I soaked the hank in a vinegar water for an hour while I mixed up each dye one more time. In the dye solutions I added about a teaspoon of salt and a splash of vinegar (the solutions were 1g of dye powder to 8oz of water). I then hand painted the hank to be absolutely certain there was enough dye and penetration throughout the hank. I also made sure to press out as much of the vinegar:water solution to keep from there being unwanted dilution. Once the hank was painted, I used the same vinegar:water solution as the dye bath water - waste not, want not, right? There was some color movement, but not too much. Until..
I decided to add more water, once again worried about scorching. There was a lot of bleeding which led to my attempt to make "Aubergine" from the AD option out of a mix of FRD powders turning some of the oranges more brown. And maybe that was a problem in the last batch that I didn't pay enough attention to.
It heated at around 200-225 degrees for 30 minutes and then I left it overnight to cool. The next day, I removed it from the bath, expressed the water, and made a new bath that had about a tablespoon of dissolved soda ash. It simmered in the soda ash bath at 200 degrees for 20 minutes, rested in the water for 10 minutes, and then went to the rinsing sink.
The first wash was warm water, synthrapol, and wool wash. It soaked for 30 minutes, long enough to soak and cool in our dropping temperatures in the PNW.
There wasn't much immediate bleeding so I was encouraged! When I removed it, there was a decent amount of dye that washed out, but it didn't seem too egregious compared to some of the previous first-washes. I know the photo is awful, but it's not a glamorous subject!
Since the hank had cooled in the bath, I decided to try adding a step. Insert the amazing spin dryer! I decided to take it to the spin dryer to make sure that I got as much of the first rinse-water out to see the real results of the next rinse.
Ya'll. -- Side note: I'm from the South, raised by a New Yorker. Ya'll is not a word I use. So when I use it, I mean YA'LL with exclamation points --
YA'LL. This rinsed in fresh, cool water for 20 minutes and I gently squeezed it out with my hands to see what would come out. This is the water afterwards. Not a drop of dye.
I took the hank back to the spin dryer and hung it to dry. I could immediately see that one of the oranges is again not the shade I originally had but there was also, again, a lot of backstaining of color from my Aubergine-attempt. The good news, I thought, is that I don't intend on using much of this color in the warp; it is meant to be my weft color. A steamer pan for setting dye would definitely help with that issue so it may be getting added to my next online shopping spree. But the hank had to dry for a final analysis.
**** drum roll ****
It wasn't great. And I think it's the soda ash on the wool and silk.
It looks almost exactly like the last attempt that I thought was an issue with the dye solution or the application process. It appears to be neither of those. And I thought I was so smart! Below, you can see the progression of each test from left to right. Every hank was soaked in a vinegar:water solution before any dye was applied.
Hank 1: Hand painted with FRD, no heat.
Hank 2: Hand-painted with FRD, heated in shallow vinegar:water bath only.
Hanks 3 & 4: Low immersion dye application, FRD, vinegar:water bath only.
Hanks 5 & 6: Low immersion dye application, FRD, vinegar:water bath with light salt , cooled, then quick bath in soda ash solution.
Hank 7: Hand-painted with solution containing 1 tsp salt and a splash of vinegar, FRD, vinegar:water bath first, cooled completely overnight in bath, then quick soda ash bath.
Hanks 3 & 4 are my favorites. So now I have to decide if I want to continue on this path, or bite the bullet and order ADs. Excluding Hank 1, I have about 900 yards of dyed yarn and they are at least similar enough that I can use them mixed together for a warp, so this is NOT a total waste of supplies! And while I feel a bit defeated, I know I still learned a few things here. I'm leaning towards buying the ADs, making sure the first rinse or two is in warm water, and to keep using the spin dryer to make sure I get out as much of the water as possible between each rinse so I know for sure what I'm getting out.
It's your turn now. What would you do differently? What would you do next? All I can do is hope that my experiments might save you a little time/yarn/frustration in the future and that maybe you have some insight to share. Thanks for sticking with me throughout this little dye journey!
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