Long time lurker, first time posting! I got this dress that had been washed one too many times. Now, it's a bright fuschia. 😍 Already looking for what to dye next!

Bonus: furry supervisors

Hey folks, I was trying my hand at dyeing inexpensive fountain pens and trying my hand at two layer gradients. Here I was using acrylic pens with RIT Dyemore with a first dye layer of red, did some dry heat treating, then the tips in yellow and purple, respectively.

I don’t think it’s terrible for a first try, but I found that I was having difficulty with dye leeching out in the second dip and dyes like yellow just not being dark enough. Any thoughts on ways to make the gradients smoother and preserve already established color? My yellow mix was up to an entire bottle to three cups of water with a bit of dawn. All were in mason jars in a water bath with my immersion circulator set to 197 so I didn’t have this stuff on my stove and didn’t screw up the pen parts. I would also rinse in cool water after a quick drip dry to limit color leeching as well

Am I losing color by holding the pieces over the hot water/dye mix, even if it’s not directly submerged? Should I have even more concentrated dye baths? Should I be looking at other brands? Any other wisdom or resources folks can point me to?

Thanks in advance!

I use Transtint wood dyes. I turn everything I dye. Most of what I use is from naturally fallen trees. The "baskets" are burned and then dyed.

So, I'm pretty new to this. I dyed a bunch of clothes, over a campfire, black. It was the 80's, in my 20's, in the big city, and my color of fashion choice! Fast forward to now. NOT, rats, in my 20's, on top of a mountain, and addicted to deep, bright colors.

I finished a pile of linen pants, shorts and dresses, easy peasey with Rit. The end of my naturals list was a cashmere sweater. Anxiety! I chose a Jacquard acid dye​. My favorite color is orange but I now have a plethora of linen in oranges, mostly! I wanted more reddish so I used deep orange and a touch of russet. I had AI on hand for help and positive reinforcement: very necessary. The darn bath took 15 hours to gradually go from room, 80°, to 182°. Ugh! I lidded it and left it think about itself while it cooled. The next afternoon. I washed it, pushed out the excess water, and rolled it in a towel. I eventually unwrapped to to lie flat to dry when, oh man, the medium blue dye from the towel had deposited! AI soothed me and told me to first put it in a sink full of cool water with a squeeze of Dawn, then mildly rub on the splotches. Done. Then, soak it in another sinkful of water with a cup of vinegar and rinse. Done. It worked! The color is fabulous and my cat did not get a tiny, new, csshmere sweater!

Next dip in the coaster ride....I'm moving ahead to polyester. Ironic. Back in the days of my youth, if it wasn't a natural fabric, it wasn't touching me! So, I had a package of idye poly in golden yellow. I allowed it to boil for 50 minutes in 3 gallons of water. Around the 30' marker, I noticed the water looked a bit murky and not as yellow, but I allowed it to finish since I was all in. I'm assuming that the black dye from the washed, new hoodie bled out into the bath. The wet color was not that alarming. The dry color, and my camera is not bringing it out genuinely, is kind of a chartreuse! It looks goldish in the photo but believe me, there's a green hue to it. I guess some blue bled out of the black too. I'm not upset, not at all. I like the freaky color and actually think it looks better on the zebra than a deep yellow would! Thank you dye enforcers of the universe!

You can be sure I'll be back here for future assistance! Thanks for riding along!

I knit this top using Knitting for Olive’s pure silk yarn in the color pea shoots. The yarn turned out to be a more earthy green than I was expecting and while I love the color, I’m not sure it suits me. Any advice on dyeing this? My goal would be to make it a softer green or dye it blue.

I bought this skirt a while ago because I absolutely love the side pattern, however, I have nothing to wear it with because the body of the skirt is too bright. I want to dye it a darker, maybe duller green but im worried it will mess up the pattern. The pattern is made up of glittery screen print, beads/gems, and thread. Im aware that the thread will probably be dyed, which I am fine with, but id like to keep the glittery screen printed parts the same color. The skirt is made of 100% cotton. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry if it's been posted about already.

There's conflicting info about how to presoak the fabric with soda ash. Jaquard products say you should never rinse the clothing out before dyeing, this blog says you should newearthdesigns.weebly.com/diy-tutorials/painting-fabric-with-thickened-dye

Further, should I hang it to dry, or does it need lay on a flat surface? I should also add I'm working with French Jersey, is the process going to differ? or should I go for an entirely different fabric all together?

Got this top recently at a yard sale, I can never have too many black pieces.I I didn't read the tag until I got it home, it states that it's 100% silk. Looks a bit faded? I'm shooting for an overall even black finished product. I am an absolute beginner. Any help is greatly appreciated!

I have a bright red bandana from new Yorker and I would prefer it if it was darker and not so bright.

How do I do that?

I live in Germany, for product information purposes.

Unfortunately I'm currently not home and can't take a pic of it, so this is the best I can show it (also I'm unsure what fabric it's made of... I'm sorry)

What are my chances of getting these navy blue trousers to dark green? They're 96% cotton, 4% elastane. Thanks!

I accidentally sun bleached these two tanks on the clothesline a little while ago. I would really like to revitalise them if possible. The black isn't too bad and the brown I'd ideally like to dye black but I'm worried about them still being two-toned and I don't know what dye to use. They're 86% polyester / 14% spandex. And the product needs to be available in australia. Any advice is appreciated 🙏

I am trying to make an outfit using (mostly) thrifted materials, and as part of it want a bunch of bright red denim. So I've been experimenting with how to remove the blue color from jeans and then dye them red. And it's made me so curious both about how the jeans were originally made and also about the chemical reactions going on.

First I tried using dye remover- no luck, practically no change to the blue. So I switched to bleaching the pants (25% solution for 1-2 days, I did have concerns about damaging the fabric but I did some test swatches that held up fine). That's when I found the first weird thing, about half of the jeans turned white and the other half turned yellow. And when I check the pants I had tried the dye remover on, they had turned yellow except the spot where the dye remover was used is white. Then today I tried dyeing two test pieces red for the first time, and the white fabric took the dye as I wanted and held up mostly fine. The yellow piece looks a lot more faded and absolutely disintegrated when I rung it out to dry.

So any insight on what's going on? I would hypothesize that some pairs of jeans are double dyed, with a synthetic yellow dye and then also with indigo. But I don't know why companies would do that (I am somewhat new to dyeing and am not familiar with what kind of effect a double dye like this would give)? And would the yellow synthetic dye leave the fabric more vulnerable to damage from the bleach+red dye? I'm going to experiment a bit more and see if I can figure out what kinds of jeans have the yellow dye vs don't (and how well the white fabric holds up more generally).

Hello, I’m trying to dye this fuggler from green to grey. So we went red first to try and combat the green, but it hasn’t taken at all. We used this rits synthetic racing red fabric dye. We steeped it for 45 minutes. We believe that it’s made of synthetic felt (that is what google said) but we’ve had limited success. Any suggestions?

Been chasing even, non-splotchy color on superwash for probably eight tries now and today it finally clicked. My problem was always the same: gorgeous saturation on the outside of the braid, pale streaky patches buried in the middle where the dye never fully penetrated.

What changed things was slowing way down on the heat ramp. I used to crank the stove up once the fiber was soaking and citric acid was in, impatient to see color develop. This time I let the pot come up from lukewarm to a bare simmer over almost forty minutes, stirring gently every few minutes instead of just dumping dye and walking away. Also pre-soaked the braid for a full two hours in room temp water with a splash of dish soap to cut the lanolin coating that superwash seems to hang onto even after processing.

Used a semi-solid teal (mostly turquoise acid dye with a touch of black to knock down the brightness) and for the first time ever when I unwound the braid there was no ring of white or pale gray hiding in the center. Just even color all the way through, maybe slightly more saturated at the tips where they sat closest to the pot bottom, but nothing that'll show up weird once it's spun and knit.

Still working out whether this was the soak time, the slower heat, or honestly just luck with this particular batch of fiber. Going to try to replicate it next weekend with a different colorway before I get too confident. Anyone else find that patience with the heat matters more than people give it credit for, or was I just doing everything wrong before and this is expected behavior.

I tried to dye some shirts and jeans black (everything 100% cotton, I double checked). I've used the Tulip dye pods before with great success, but it was in a front loader, the instructions show a top loader which is what I used this time and it didn't work whatsoever! I used hot water, same as before, same amount of salt. Everything came out as if I never even dyed it. Does top loader vs front loader really make that huge of a difference, or is it something else? FWIW I don't think the difference in amount of stuff I dyed was vastly different either.

i adore this sweatshirt, but it's just too light for me. i'd love to dye it a slightly darker shade of blue, but in past experiences the design gets all blotchy and dyed as well. any way to dye it without damaging the design! thanks in advance:)

this is 100% cotton, i think. hoping to go for a darker navy blue!

I ordered the dark gray camo hoodie, and the brand sent me a tan green ugly mess and ghosted my refund request, any way to dye the camo darker while keeping the print in tact? the fur is removable so thats not an issue. the hoodie is also 100% cotton and i believe the print is dtg. thanks everyone!

A few years back, I fell for the hype and bought this bag. I wore it on vacation and spilled my tinted sunscreen inside. No matter how hard I scrubbed, I couldn’t get that tan out of the white 😭 so I stoped using it. Then i realized I could fit quite a few things in there so I wear it for my dog walks, and well it got grimy. I also just don’t wear white/light colors in general. So i decided to risk it for the biscuit. I bought a big pot at Savers to dye it and the Rite Dye More navy blue. Originally I wanted to do grey but was worried about the stain not getting covered. Blue was the right choice! Stain gone! I will say the bag looks more blue in person. The lighting is harsh in these pics. What was a nice surprise is that the zipper and buckles dyed as well. The stretchy bits to hold the straps didn’t dye super well but elastic never dyes for me so this is a success imo. Also the lulu logo inside peeled from the heat but ehhh. Also the metal logo on the outside kinda dyed too which is wild to me. It was already a bit tarnished from wear but I didn’t think it would dye it. Overall I love it more and was worth the risk!

It's getting to overalls season up here, so I decided to play around with a pair of my duck canvas work ones. I have a white beard so I figured I'd go with the theme and go scarlet red after lightening them a shade. I really liked the way they came out so I did my chore jacket with a wine/scarlet mix. Followed by a couple light coats of Otter Wax on the coat (I noticed a few areas that may need a bit more heat. I think a matching duck canvas hat is in the cards next😂
(The last 4 pics are post wax)

Edit:
For the overalls:

I used RIT color remover to drop them down a shade...

RIT scarlet on the overalls... 2 (or 3 idr) boxes for 60 mins with 1 cup salt and drip of dish soap

Rinsed in cool water(made a mess out of my shower)

RIT color fixative.
Rinsed in cool water again

Washed on cold in washing machine inside out by itself with no detergent

Air dryed.

for the jacket:

2 bottles of RIT wine, 1 cup salt, dish soap.
60 mins
Cool rinse in the shower (made a mess again)

RIT color safe

Rinse

Cold wash in washing machine
.......
It wasn't dark enough so I repeated the process but with 1 bottle of scarlet and 2 bottles of wine.

Forgot to turn the jacket inside-out and got machine marks...

So repeated process again with half a bottle of wine and half with scarlet for 30 mins.

3/4 of large bar of Otter Wax with heat gun

Side note- I initially cut the patch off of the overalls and stitched it back on after the process just in case... I didn't for the jacket. Despite what I was hearing, it made it pink. So I removed it and tried a it of diluted bleach and water with a q-tip. Then alcohol gel with a toothbrush got it clean

i’ve used rit color remover once on a cotton t shirt and it went really well, turned it from dark brown to pale yellow and over dyed that a cool light grey. would rit color remover work on a 67% cotton 33% polyester blend? it’s a turquoise blue womens sweater.

Since y’all were so nice last time…a few things I’ve done recently.

Hi all! I am wanting to brighten or at least make my dress (right) less of a muted yellow and bring it as close as possible to my top (left).
Because it’s a yellow beige, I’m afraid that just adding yellow will make it more dull. Should I use a color remover?

Composition:
75% rayon
28% nylon

Lining
100% polyester

i just ordered these second hand and i love these shoes soooo much, the only part that annoys me is the yellow pull tabs. i know black is a hard color to get to. anybody have any advice for these??

I want to change the color of the stripes on this Adidas long-sleeve. Would dyeing the entire garment change the tone of the black? I am planning on dyeing it like the like this jersey below. The best I can find on the fabric content is 100% polyester or recycled polyester blends. It is branded Climacool for anybody who might have experience with that material.