Tie-dying

[prettycandles]

Does anyone do this?

When dd's nappy leaked yesterday, I discovered that her lovely ethnic outfit isn't at all colourfast. I emailed Dylon to ask if they had any dye fixative that I could use, but they couldn't help. I wonder whether any Mumsnetters would know of anything I could use? I have vague memories of using something householdish when we did tie-dying at primary school...vinegar or salt or something...?

bump

bumpity bump - interested in the answer myself!

You put salt in when you're dying clothes - quite a lot - I think it's about 500g per dying load. I don't know how well it would work in this situation. (never done it this way but have dyed lots of things!) Could you not just wash the outfit (on its own!) and then the colour that is going to run out will and then it should be OK? Don't know if that makes any sense

Vinegar and salt only help in specific situations. There is stuff called Retayne that helps keep dye stuck, but if it's already unstuck itself, keep the outit damp if at all possible and lay your hands on some Synthrapol, which will keep loose dye from going anywhere new (it will bleed but other things won't get dyed by it) These are both available from art stores and places that do dyes; my source is in California and too slow for your purposes. Here, sewing stores also often have a product range that includes a Synthrapol-like thing for runny colours.

Usually Synthrapol is the better bet as runniness is immense amounts of extra dye which cannot be stuck.

Thanks Californiagirl. I don't quite understand what the Synthrapol does, could you explain again?

When dye runs, it's because it hasn't stuck to the cloth. Could be that it didn't stick for chemical reasons, in which case Retayne might help. But usually it didn't stick because the cloth was full of dye, so the extra unbound dye goes looking for something nice to stick to, like a nice white T-shirt. Synthrapol is "stickier" than cloth, so it keeps the unbound dye floating around in the water stuck to the Synthrapol, instead of dying other bits of cloth.