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WEL COME TO OUR DYESTUFF & DYEING SITE ! |
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WELCOME TO OUR DYESTUFF SITE |
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Hand Dyeing - How to Do It
basic recipe for Procion MX dyes on cellulose or silk
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Ingredients: appropriate cloth or clothing; water; urea (optional); Procion MX dyes; sodium carbonate (soda ash or "pH Up"). Rubber bands, synthetic sinew, or dental floss for tyeing (optional). Plastic bottles with to hold the dye (4 to 8 ounces [125 to 250 ml]  is a good size).
Instructions:
- Choose the right fabric, first. Fabrics that are at least 80% cellulose fiber--
 cotton, rayon, linen, tencel, or hemp--should dye well. 50% cotton/50% polyester makes nice pastels. Cotton clothing is often sewn with non-cotton thread, which stays white, but this is not usually a problem. Avoid 100% polyester or nylon. Silk is the only protein (animal) fiber that can be dyed with this recipe.
- Next, wash your fabric. This can be done days in advance. Unwashed fabric may not dye well.
- Next, if you're planning to tie-dye, tie the dry garments in advance. It's easiest that way. (Tieing wet garments is a total pain, and then you're committed to dyeing that day.) See the next page for more information on tieing.
- Mixing the dyes may be done up to one week in advance. (Longer storage requires refrigeration.)
- Dissolve urea in water....1 tablespoon (15 ml) per cup (250 ml). Urea is harmless, easy to measure, and it dissolves readily--a chemist's favorite. Make enough at one time for every color you're going to prepare. (Urea may be omitted in low water immersion dyeing.)
- Next, dissolve dye in urea solution. The best dye to use on cotton is a good fiber reactive dye such as Procion MX, Sabracron F, or Drimarene K Use about 4 teaspoons of dye per cup...unless the dye is or contains
turquoise, in which case you must double the amount (because you really need to dye by weight, not volume, and turquoise is very light in density), or black in which case you must use 2x or 4x as much. If you are mixing primaries to make other shades, note that the powder dissolves much more easily after it's been mixed in dry form.
Put the dye solutions into squirt or spray bottles for applying the dye - buy plastic bottles specifically for this purpose.
Be careful when you measure out the dye...leave the jars open as short a time as possible, and use a face mask. Don't breathe dye! The stuff isn't very toxic, but you can become sensitized to it, which would put an end forever to your dyeing.
- Pre-soaking the fabric. Just before dyeing, pre-soak the fabric for fifteen minutes to one hour in a solution of sodium carbonate, mixed one cup per gallon of water. This stuff is also known as washing soda (but don't buy the type sold in the grocery store - it may have undesirable additives). The kind sold for swimming pools - one brand is "pH Up" - is excellent. (Do not use sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda!)
- Applying the dye. I like to lay the fabric nearly flat, or pleated loosely, and drip with squeeze bottles directly onto the fabric, or spray it on with a spray bottle. This part is easy and fun, but always more tiring than I expect. Be sure to wear gloves! The sodium carbonate is slightly caustic and must be washed or at least wiped off of your skin immediately after contact.
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- Reaction time. Make sure that the fabric stays wet, for the reaction to take place, no less than two hours, but preferably eight to twenty-four hours. The amount of time required depends on the temperature. In our humid climate here, we just leave the clothing outside, trusting the urea, a humectant, to keep our fabric sufficently damp, but in drier climates you may need to use plastic wrap or plastic bags.
- Wash the clothing. Many dyers prefer to use Synthrapol detergent in the wash water, to help prevent dyes from mixing in undesired ways. You still need to isolate very light colors (especially yellow/orange); the problem with transfer of unreacted dye from dark to light regions is reduced by waiting a full day or more before washing out, as dye which has not reacted with the fabric will tend to react with the water, if given enough time. I wash first on cold, then on warm, then on hot
 , using Synthrapol in each wash, and end by double-rinsing. You may need to wash the clothes separately the first few wearings, but pretty soon they are 100% colorfast and safe to wash with anything, in my experience.
- Heat setting is NOT necessary with Procion MX dyes. The only reason to use a hot water wash is to rid the cloth of the last bits of unreacted dye. It is important to use cold water before using hot water, as hot water may, in the presence of the sodium carbonate, encourage some excess dye to become a little too closely associated with the fabric, resulting in dye that gradually rinses out over the course of many washings.
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ABOUT THE DYES |
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Your choice of dye depends directly on what kind of fabric you are using. You'll get bad results if you use a wool dye on cotton, or a cotton dye on wool, or either on polyester.
Dyes for Cellulose Fibers
This is your choice if you want to dye a t-shirt. Cellulose fibers include cotton, linen, rayon, hemp, ramie, and tencel. For the best, brightest results, use fabric that is composed of at least 80% of one of these fibers, though it is possible to dye fabrics containing as little as 30% natural fiber, with varying results.
Fiber Reactive dyesThe material from this section of this page has been moved to side bar on Reactive Dyes for Cotton, Rayon, and Silk, which is currently undergoing expansion.
Direct dyes
The material from this section of this page has been moved to a new page about Direct Dye.
Napthol dyes
Cotton can also be dyed with azoic or naphthol dyes. Azoic or naphthol dyes use more hazardous chemicals and are therefore much less desirable for home use; furthermore, it is deemed too harzardous to be allowed to be imported in the US. The dyes are still being used by craftspeople in Australia, however, and the way the dyes work is fascinating. Use only with extreme caution, to avoid a high risk of bladder cancer and similar diseases.
Dyes for Synthetic Fibers
Polyester requires the use of disperse dyes.
The material from this section of this page has been moved to a new page about Disperse Dye for Polyester.
Oddly, nylon, which is a truly synthetic fiber, happens to dye quite well with the same acid dyes that work on wool and other animal fibers, in addition to dyes that work on polyester. For more information on dyes for nylon,
Acrylic fiber can be dyed with disperse dyes or with basic dyes. Basic dyes appear to be easy to use, can be used for hand-painting, and result in particularly brilliant colors, which are quite washfast on acrylic. However, they dye everything permanantly, including your containers, your sink, your counter, your floor, or anything else they get on to, unlike most other types of dye, and they may be much more hazardous than the other dye classes. They are not for use by the beginner, certainly, and not for use by most experts.
This page is still under construction; more material will be added in the future.
Fabric paints may be used on any type of fiber that can tolerate any required heat-setting. (Not all paints require heat setting.) Fabric paint is a mixture of a pigment and a glue. The pigment, unlike dye, will not adhere to fabric on its own, so the glue is required to attach the pigment to the fiber. Natural fibers tend to work better with fabric paints than synthetic fibers, perhaps because they are rougher and provide a better surface for the glue to stick to.
The 'hand' of a fabric
Since paint does not become a part of the fiber, but instead is glued onto the surface of the fiber, it can, in some cases, leave an extremely disagreeable feeling on the fabric, unlike dye, which leaves no "hand" at all. It is very important to choose your fabric paint carefully, if you wish to avoid this effect. A few high quality paints give quite satisfactory results & choices by AL AMIN BROTHERS.
Wear and tear
Since paint sits on the surface of the fabric, it is much more subject to wear than most dyes. The only exception for dyes is in the case of "ring dyeing", which is when only the very outermost layer of the fiber is dyed. In most cases, ring-dyeing is considered to be a fault, but it is what is responsible for the much-desired fading effect of wear on indigo-dyed denim blue jeans.
Pigment "Dyes"
Pigment-dyeing is actually not dyeing at all; it is the immersion painting of a garment with a very thin, soft fabric paint. Since fabric paint wears off of surfaces more quickly than dye, garments "dyed" with pigment dyes appear much more worn than their actual age and degree of wear would warrant - yielding an effect of instant age.
Dye Painting
To complicate matters, it is not necessary to use fabric paint to paint a design onto fabric. Direct application of dye can result in highly superior results. Dye may be painted on, dissolved in just water or alcohol, and allowed to spread like watercolor, or dye may be thickened with a product such as alginate in order to give a much more "paint-like" result. Fiber reactive dyes that are fixed with soda ash may be applied to fabric that has been soaked in soda ash and then line-dried, or the soda ash may be mixed in with the dye, or the painting may be fixed afterwards by painting on sodium silicate or soda ash in a saturated salt solution.
Commercially available silk paints include both dyes and paints. Dyes sold for use in silk painting include the Basic Type Dye sold by Aljo as their "Alcohol/Water" dye for silk, Procion H reactive dye (which requires steaming, unlike Procion MX dye), Tinfix, Dupont, and many other brands of dye. An excellent source for many types of silk paint is AL AMIN BROTHERS.
Sun Painting
Any transparent fabric paint can be used in sun-painting. (Opaque fabric paint will not work.) The paint is diluted with water, and applied to dampened fabric. Various items such as leaves, flowers, shells, feathers, bits of metal (beware of rust), and aluminum foil cut-outs are then placed on the damp painted fabric, and the fabric is then allowed to dry, either in bright sunlight or under another source of heat such as a heat lamp or a heat gun (which is a hair dryer without a fan to blow the items about). As the exposed areas dry sooner, they suck wet paint out from under the objects on the fabric, leaving the covered areas as much paler designs.
Salt and Alcohol Effects
Stretch fabric tightly, and sprinkle salt on the damp painted fabric. Different sizes of salt yield different results; What happens is the salt "sucks" water out of nearby areas, leaving lovely sweeping pale spots. Salt effects work with dye only if the dye is to be fixed afterwards; dye that is already reacting, such as fiber reactive dye on pre-soda-soaked fabric, will not show salt effects.
Dropping alcohol on the paint gives lighter spots with darker edges.
Painting on a dark background
The vast majority of fabric paints, like all fabric dyes, are transparent. They do not cover up the color of the fabric. If you wish to paint onto dark fabric, be sure to purchase only opaque fabric paint. Recommended brands of Al Amin Brothers selected.
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MORE WAYS TO DYEING |
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 On Dip Dyeing
What is dip dyeing?
Dip dyeing is a way to get the lovely continuous color gradations seen in low water immersion dyeing, while gaining more control over the end result.
 You can dip whole garments, one edge at a time, but I tend to fold the garments first, so as to get a much easier package to work with, and to produce specific repeating patterns.
Instructions
As in other forms of hand Procion MX dyeing, study the How to Dye basic recipe first.
Fold the fabric. For precision folding, it helps to use an iron, making crisp sharp folds at regular intervals. You can fold in many different ways, just as in tie dyeing. I prefer to avoid the use of any ties, except perhaps a very loose rubber band to help hold the packet together. Any ties represent not only white resist regions, but also a path along which color can creep on the outside of the packet, sometimes resulting in very dramatic lines on just two of the many fold faces.
The "flower' pattern is produced by first accordian-folding your garment or yardage to make a long narrow rectangle, then folding the fabric back and forth in the shape of a triangle. Any fold pattern you choose should be folded back and forth, accordian style, rather than over and over as you might fold a sheet to put it away, so that no edge is enclosed within another edge, but instead every edge is available for exposure to the dye.
Mix the dye. See the How to Dye basic recipe. Omit salt or urea - just mix dye and water. (Use water softener if your water is very hard.)
Dip the fabric. Here's the fun part, watching one color creep up along the fabric, then watching the next color 'chase' the first color along up. The subsequent color mixes only at the edges, as the preceding color wicks further up the fabric.
You can dip corners of whole edges in the dye, or use a 5 ml eyedropper (sold in pharmacies for dispensing medication to young children) to add dye to a small region of one side. Repeat with multiple colors on various parts of your fabric until little or no white remains. Do not immerse one face of the folded fabric - just edges - so that you can be sure that what you see creeping up the side of the packet is identical to what is happening inside.
In the 'flower fold' example, the corner of the fabric bundle is the center of the flower; the flower is often circular when unfolded. Dip once for the flower petal color, then again for the color that marks the center of the flower. Dip only for a very short time if you want a small flower center!
Fixing the dye. Follow the method described in "Fixing the dye" on the low water immersion page. Calculate how much dye liquid your fabric has absorbed, adding it all up together (and subtracting the amount left in the containers after dipping), then use a total of 1 teaspoon soda ash per cup of water - including the cup or so that you dissolve the soda ash in for this final step.
Some of the dye will float off of the fabric and mix into the soda ash solution. Some may get on other parts of the dyed fabric, disturbing the perfection of your design. This is usually not a problem, but keep it in mind if you're feeling very perfectionistic. I consider the accidents created by this to be mostly positive, especially since the subtle mixtures of colors can be very beautiful compared to the harder color edges you may see when the soda ash is instead applied as a pre-soak. However, a new technique introduced to the Dyerslist mailing list community simply to use a saturated salt solution to dissolve the soda ash in, and put the (drained) garment into it to fix. The high concentration of salt prevents dye transfer. What a great idea! (A saturated salt solution is one in which so much salt has been dissolved in the water that no more can be dissolved, as evidenced by the presence of some undissolved salt.)
Reaction Time. You must then leave the soda ash to react with the fabric and dye for a miniumum of one hour, up to 24 or 48 hours under some conditions. See 'Reaction Time' on the low water immersion page for more details. Alternatively, you may seal the working container with plastic wrap, if it is microwaveable, and, after allowing the dye to soak into the fabric well, microwave just until the bowl is very hot, but not to the point that the plastic wrap would be blown off by the steam. (Warning: never microwave dry fabric, as it will burn.)
Washing out. Wash out as usual - first with cold water, then (if the fabric can handle it) warm and finally hot water, preferably using Synthrapol SP detergent.
More Ideas for dyeing (part 1)
Here are some more unusual dyeing techniques.
Sprinkle Dyeing
Caution: dry Procion MX dye powder is dangerous, unlike solutions of the dye in water. Inhaled dye may give you an allergy or sensitivity to the dye, ending your days of dyeing with Procion dyes forever. Be careful when using dye powder! Wear a dust mask! Don't breath dye powder!
I purchased plastic salt shakers with snap-on lids at a grocery store, and in each one mixed dry Procion MX dye powder with plain, non-iodized salt. The snap-on lids prevent the dye and salt from absorbing moisture from the humid air here, which would cause the dye to lose its strength. I pre-soaked the fabric in washing soda, just as in the main recipe, wrung it out, lay it flat, and sprinkled the dyes on. The effect is of many tiny dots of very intense color...very satisfying, assuming you take care in selecting adjoining colors.
Dye Painting
Closely related to Drip Dyeing is Dye Painting. Use a thickener such as sodium alginate (derived from seaweed) to turn the dye into a material like paint, but without the unpleasant feel that paint typically imparts to fabric.
Spray Dyeing
This one's easy, but ingenious. . Put the same dye solutions into spray bottles, then either wrinkle or pleat the material, or place objects on top of it, before spraying the dye. The dye mostly stays on the surface, like printed material, but the occasional drip will soak through, so, if you're working with a garment rather than unsewn fabric, you may wish to pin a piece of a clean garbage bag between the front and the back of the garment.
Discharge Dyeing
This technique uses bleach, instead of dye. then tied, bleached, rinsed in vinegar water, washed, dried, tied, and dyed; in some case, the entire procedure was repeated again. The dyed bleached areas there look like colored lightening bolts. (Note that vinegar water is not the best choice for neutralizing bleach, as their reaction produces even more hazardous chemicals; it is best to use Anti-chlor, which is available in bulk at a reasonable price from Al Amin Brothers or you might use chlorine-free oxygen "bleach" as a neutralizer, in a pinch.)
If you try discharging with bleach, be sure to fill the washing machine with water *before* you begin bleaching, as you must stop the bleaching as soon as the color gets light enough, or else risk having the fabric fall apart. The best way to neutralize chlorine bleach is with Anti-chlor from Al Amin Brothers, because it is very economical, safe, and effective, but the non-chlorine (oxygen) "bleach" sold for washing clothes can also do the job of neutralizing the bleached clothing in the washing machine.
There are also other bleaching compounds besides chlorine. RIT makes a good color remover which you may like, and dyehouses such as Al Amin Brothers sell other compounds which can be used for this purpose. In every case, be very careful. All of these bleaching agents are dangerous, far more so than the dyes we hobbyists normally use.
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New Ideas for dyeing, part 2 |
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Fabric Markers
Drawing lots of stuff by hand on a shirt is certainly more time-consuming than any of the other techniques I mention. The biggest problem is that markers contain transparent ink, and thus require a white background.
Besides their use for drawing complete pictures on clothing, fabric markers have many potential uses in adding details to other types of designs. You could add antennae to stamped insects, or fins to stamped fish, or have fun coloring in the spaces left after stamping or printing in black.
Fabric Paints
Many different fabric paints are suitable for printing or painting with a brush. All you have to do for printing is use a small foam brush to apply the paint to whatever you're using to print with, then apply the item with the wet paint on it to the fabric. Some fabric paints leave a nasty, hard feeling on the fabric, like latex house paint; others are very thin and almost soft. "Slick" paints are unsuitable for painting large areas, partly because of the unpleasantness of the feel, and partly because if you are foolish enough to put them in the dryer (put everything in the dryer--it's too humid here for clothes to dry on a line!), the large painted areas can stick together. Fortunately, they always came apart again when pulled on while still warm. A key point is that most fabric paints are transparent, and thus totally unsuitable for use on dark colors such as black or navy--the very colors that age best when worn by a messy child. Check carefully for claims of opacity. If it doesn't say it's opaque, assume that it is not.
Transparent fabric paints can have beautiful effects when used on lighter colors, of course, really much more satisfying to the artist than the opaque paints on a black shirt, but far less satisfying to the child who wants a nice spaceship and solar system t-shirt!
Printing
Printing with Sponges
You can buy pre-cut sponges, or you can buy sponges that are pressed so thin and flat that you can cut out fairly detailed shapes with a pair of scissors with the greatest of ease. Then simply wet the sponge, and wring it out, before dipping it into paint or applying paint with a sponge. The holey texture of the sponge overwhelms the design.
Printing with fabric stamps
You can sometimes buy some great fabric stamps (see Katy Widger's book in my book reviews section). Ordinary paper stamps are less apt to be as satisfying, as the cut-out parts may not be deep enough to avoid printing. A very fine way to make your own stamps is to use a product that is a thin, paper-backed, self-adhesive sheet of rubber; For backing material in either case, use a cheap child's wooden block, if handy, or scrap bits of Lucite or other thick sheets of acrylic. The latter has obvious advantages in placing the print in the exact right position on the fabric.
Most rubber stamps intended for paper will not print well on fabric, due to their tiny details. If you want to use detail paper-type rubber stamps on fabric, use synthetic fabric, with a stamp pad containing disperse dye, a kind of dye that works only on synthetics such as polyester. Stamp onto paper, and iron on to your polyester.
Screen Printing
Screen printing is an excellent way to add prints to your fabric, using either thickened dyes or fabric paints, but it seems like a lot of trouble to you..
Transfers prepared on your own computer
Computer Printer Iron-on Pupular
This one is very popular, although it feels rather stiff on the fabric.but it's not abilable in bangladesh but some textile has improved there site by that, It works with any inkjet printer. The color ink has the usual drawback of transparency--forget using it on anything but white or natural colored fabric--but the black ink might be just the thing to add finely detailed Celtic knot patterns, or tree sillhouettes, etc., on top of a fairly light-colored hand-dyed shirt!
Marbling
It seems to me that marbling is more different from other forms of fabric painting than it is similar to them. I have no experience with marbling, and no plans to try it anytime soon, though the results can be breath-taking. I recommend that the beginner purchase a kit, with complete instructions, from one of the major suppliers.
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How to Do Low Water Immersion Dyeing |
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How to Do Low Water Immersion Dyeing Low Water Immersion dyeing is also known as "scrunch" dyeing, "crumple" dyeing, or "crackle" dyeing. In traditional immersion dyeing, one uses a large volume of water, frequent stirring, and the use of leveling agents such as salt and, optionally, Calsolene oil, in order to make the color as smooth and featureless as possible. Low water immersion dyeing is the opposite of this approach. In low water immersion dyeing, one uses as little water as possible, crunching the fabric together for a sort of resist effect, with as little stirring as possible.
Wonderful color gradations are the hallmark of the low water technique. Where mixing oppsite colors, such as red and green, result in ugly muddy effects in tie-dye, they result in gorgeous subtle shadings in low water immersion dyeing. The reason for this is that, in tie dyeing, one normally pre-soaks the fabric in the soda ash fixer, or else adds it to the dye solutions themselves, so that the dye immediately reacts with the first fiber it touches. There is no chance for the dye colors to blend before the reaction takes place. In contrast, the low water technique involves adding the dyeing fixer *last*, after allowing the colors to slowly blend and creep along the fabric, resulting in truly infinite gradations of color.
Getting Started
As in other forms of hand Procion dyeing, study the How to Dye basic recipe first. Make sure you have all the chemicals and supplies you need for dyeing: Procion dyes or other fiber reactive dyes, sodium carbonate, thin rubber or plastic gloves, measuring cups and spoons, dust mask for measuring out dyes, and a small bucket, large jar, or other container for doing the dyeing in. (The container should be plastic, glass, enamel, or stainless steel, not aluminum or iron.) The container should be no wider than necessary to hold the fabric, as it is best to really cram the fabric in tightly, for maximum contrasts. Be sure to pre-wash all clothing to remove invisible finishes that can prevent the dye from getting to the fabric.
Instructionsprefer not to work with the dye stock solutions she uses, but instead mix new colors as you need them, and prefer not to add any fixer until after all of the dye has been added.
Applying dye. First, crumple the garment or cloth and stuff it tightly into a container. Then mix up one color of Procion or similar fiber reactive dye, anywhere from 1/16 to 4 teaspoons of dye per cup, total volume one to two cups (where a teaspoon is about 5 ml, and a cup is about 250 ml). Do not add urea - you want nothing but pure dye in water. It may take five or ten minutes of constant stirring to dissolve some dyess. Pour this over the garment.
Next, mix another color, in mush the same manner. Try wild color combinations - for great success with purple plus orange, or black plus emerald green. be careful to wet the entire top layer of the garment, in case air bubbles within the garment cause it to float, leaving the top regions sticking out of the dye bath. (Better, perhaps, to avoid air bubbles altogether.)
You may choose to pour a cup or two of plain water over in between adding different colors, or you may choose to put one color in the bottom of the container (having first checked the fit with the dry garment in the clean container) before adding the clothing, and pour another color over the top.
You can also use only a single color, especially if it is a mixture of dry dye colors so that the colors will tend to separate out as they creep along the fabric. Keep track of how much water you add, total, for the next step. Do not stir or mush the fabric at all in this step, unless you wish to mute the variations in the final piece.
Allowing the colors to blend and spread. After you have added enough dye and water to almost cover the garment (try weighting it down with a glass measuring cup, if it floats too much - beware of rust spots from metal objects used as weights), leave it alone for anywhere from a few minutes to an hour. This time allows the colors to creep along the fabric, creating beautiful mixtures. Pre-mixed colors will tend to separate as the constituent dyes creep along the fabric at their own individual rates. Too little time will not allow this diffusion separation to occur; too much time can actually reduce the amount of variation in the piece, however, by allowing the dyes to diffuse toothoroughly, and blend together. (How much is too much, under your chosen conditions? Only trial and error can say for sure.)
Fixing the dye. When you have left the dye to rest long enough, you can now add the dyeing fixer. This is the same sodium carbonate, or soda ash, used in the other recipes in this site. A good concentration to use is one teaspoon (5 ml) for each cup (250 ml), total volume, in the dye bath - including whatever amount of water you will be using to dissolve the soda ash in for adding it. Soda ash dissolves best in hot water. If you have used a total of 8 cups of water in your dye bath, then, use 9 teaspoons, or 3 tablespoons, of soda ash, dissolved in an additional cup of water. What I do is bring one or two cups of water to a boil as soon as I've done adding the last of the dye, add the soda ash to it, stir until it is dissolved, and then leave it to cool while the dye is resting on the fabric. When the time comes, I then very carefully pour this soda ash solution over the top of the dye bath. I add more water if the topmost bits of fabric are still sticking out of the liquid, at that point. I do not stir or agitate the mixture in any way.
Reaction Time. You must then leave the soda ash to react with the fabric and dye for a miniumum of one hour. Some prefer to "batch" the reaction for 24 to 48 hours. I have never found this added time to be necessary, though I will leave the reaction overnight when that is more convenient for me. I believe that "batching" is an attempt to make up for low temperatures in the reaction, caused by low room temperature. If your room is cold, it may be more useful to warm the reaction (*after* adding the soda ash, not before, as dye will quickly react directly with hot water, leaving none to react with the fabric) than to leave it for long periods of time. Experiment with this for yourself.
Alternatively, you may cover your container tightly (such as with plastic warp) and heat for a couple of minutes in the microwave oven, watching closely to stop the heating if enough steam accumulates to risk pushing the covering off. You don't want a blowout to mess up your microwave with dye! The amount of time required depends on your oven and your total volume, so it's better to just watch closely and stop the heating when the liquid is obviously hot. (Caution: only wet fabric may be microwaved safely; dry fabric may catch on fire.)
Salt. Some dyers prefer to add salt to their low water immersion dyeing, to increase depth of shade and/or patterning; others, including Ann Johnston, do not. Only trial and error can tell you which you prefer. You can use one teaspoon (5 ml) per cup (250 ml) of total water volume
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