Dyeing materials advice

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I’m tentatively dipping my toe into the murky waters of dying materials. I’ve ordered a batch of Jacquard dyes and some synthrapol. I’ve read Midlanders SBS and a few other guides from American sites. I’ve got some rubber gloves and polythene sheet so am good to go but I still have a few questions;

To get some of the colours I want I need to mix the dye. Am I better mixing the dry powder up and dip testing until I get the right shade or should I dye with the predominant colour first and then dye with the secondary colour and vary the immersion time to get the right shade? Will the overall effect be different?

Does anyone have any ‘secret’ recipes using the Jacquard dies that they find particularly successful?

Any advice gratefully received.

Cheers - Steve

[savage take]

are you needing any deer hair steve.

[Flyfishing-UK]

Make sure you have good ventilation in the building you use, if ur using an aluminium pan bleach it each time before you dye materials as aluminium will take the dye in. Stainless steel can just be wiped each time. Note you can only dye something darker than the colour it naturally is.

What materials are you dying? naturals or synthetics? Very different procedures for both.

Cheers

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I’m planning on dying a few capes and some hair. I have one or two bits and pieces I very rarely use at the moment which are quite light coloured so thought I may as well try dying them and see how it goes. So only natural fibres at the moment. I’m just going to dye them as is, not trying to bleach them (I’m not very keen on the flat coloured materials that you get from bleaching anyway).

I’ve ordered yellow, orange, brown and olive type dyes as they are the colours I use the most of. I’m aiming for a WOI shade, and also a shade that Artifly called ‘golden glow’ which was an orangey light olive. I also have a red game saddle that I want to ‘hot’ up a bit so thought I would try that with an orange.

Andrew, I have a couple of little deer hair patches, but my old man always said never turn anything down if it’s free, so if you have any going spare!!!

I've convinced myself it shouldn't be that difficult, but can imagine I will end up with a few 'interesting' results to start with at least!

[laurie]

Steve
have you tried using natural dyes such as onion skins.
you need a lot of skins for the dyeing.
Red onion skins and ordinary onion skins give you different shades,wind bush flowers are another source of dyeing.
If you google natural dyes there is a multitude of natural wood dyes that give you some amazing results
Try oak chips soak the material in it for a week and see the results.
here is a link with a load of info
About Natural Dyes

[darwin]

You should also look at the Jacquard Burgundy, a nice colour. I am just starting to learn so... anyway if your going to mix your own measure carefully and keep notes. (amounts of everything, time & temperature) Make small batches and test with one feather at a time until you like the colours. one little feather will not take to much dye so if you dont like the colour add a bit more dye to make adjustments. The basic colours are simple, but the more complex colours that the Irish and Orkney people do will take lots of practice and experimenting unless your lucky enough for one to teach you. You guys are lucky to have such great shades. I ordered several of the fluorescent dyes a couple of months ago but the guy wont ship them. I ordered them again from a different supplier and they will be here next week. Those seem to be required for some of the shade you mentioned. The Veniard dyes are not bad if you want one premixed, just expensive and inconsistent.
Midlander's SBS was/is a great help so keep that handy. I use a couple of small stainless steel pots with lids, no adverse reactions and easy to clean. Work carefully and you wont have a problem. Oh yea, measure your dyes over spread out news paper or something to be extra safe.

[midlander]

Hi WF, there are many different variables in dyeing. The first is water quality. If in doubt, use distilled water as it's pure and contains no minerals or additives in the way tap water does. The addition of minerals etc can affect your shades depending on what you're dyeing. Next is 'uptake'. Due to the molecular size of the dye particles some colours will be absorbed faster than others, so you'll need to leave things be until all the colour has been absorbed. This is especially true with mixed colours, ie, colours that are a mix of red, yellow, blue etc. Dyeing one colour on top of another will often have different effects depending on which colour you dye first. For instance, dyeing chartreuse over yellow will have a different effect than dyeing yellow over chartreuse. Sometimes you'll want to dye a dark base colour and then 'blast' it out with a lighter colour to achieve a certain shade by reflected light with a different shade by transmitted light.

As far a secret recipes go... well... they're secret.

Anyway, experimentation's half the fun.

Quick edit. Never use aluminium pans. The acetic acid and heat creates aluminium salts which will dull your colours.

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Thanks for all the advice gents. I had convinced myself it was going to be straightforward, boil water in a pan, lob in a bit of dye, chuck in a cape, eye of newt wing of bat, have a cup of tea and slice of cake and out comes a beautiful coloured cape.

The more I read about this, the more complicated it seems, I had a look at the organic dye stuff and that certainly isn’t as simple as I would have thought. You don’t just chuck some feathers in with your chicken madras. You need a degree in chemistry and a chemical supply that would be the envy of an al-qaeda cell.

I think the obvious thing to do is to start using the dyes ‘as is’ without mixing at first just to see how things go. If all works well I can experiment with blending and over dying.

Now where can I get some picric acid and a gallon of stale donkey pi$$???

[arkle]

Picric's easy enough, or at least over here. Ebay. I think you'll have to consider a local farm/stables for the latter though. I'll leave you to collect your own Tupps wool.

Get yourself a good thermometer & stay religiously to the dye makers settings, as it's very easy to over-cook feathers. Some colours/materials might well take longer than the tea & cake, so get in a few bags of crisps.

[steveparton]

For fork's sake don't go anywhere near Picric - just Google the stuff up and find out what happens next ! Then use Veniard Std Yellow - a bit of Turmeric and a touch of a blue and a micro bit of red !

And have fun and rainbow fingers !

Steve P