All my beautiful muses are so far away.

...I have resorted to taking pictures of babies for chrissake.

This is the last time I consider coasters a quick or easy project. Straightforward perhaps, but not quick & easy. These were a wedding present for some friends.

Some photos from last summer.



Even though I shot this over a year ago I remember loving the subtle differences between the colors in the rug and the fence. What I didn't remember was that I had loaded slide film into my camera, which meant this roll was headed for a cross-process.






I love this lady. I stayed with her last summer.

Alright. I've been meaning to do this for a while now, so let's get this show on the road.

Dyeing Things Using Dharma Trading Co. Dyes Tutorial!

I found the most wonderful-feeling, soft pair of jeans at Express over the summer. Nicely thick and firm fabric that cradled my toosh and thighs brilliantly. One small snag: I refuse to wear ridiculously whisker-washed (or whatever the hell it's called) jeans. If the fabric spans the entire value scale of blue in a couple of centimeters, count me out. But I bought the jeans anyway. There had to be a way to fix them, right? Denim seemed like a pretty serious dyeing task, and the one time I tried to dye something chocolate brown with RIT dye it ended up a sort of beige-ish and faded from there. Time for something more 'professional'. Some internet searching lead me to Dharma Trading Company.

The jeans in question.

Some shirts I planned to dye at the same time. Both 100% cotton, the purple one had some weird discoloration from when I left it in my sunny car for a week or two, and the nude one just being a terrible color on me.

Okay, so the process went like this:

Discharge color.
Prewash all to-be-dyed items.

Introduce some dye.

Their website has really good instructions for all of this, but I am going to repeat it for the sake of sweet sweet redundancy.

Things you'll need for 1 lb. dry fabric (all of it came from Dharma except the salt and the pot and the water and the measuring stuff):
Measuring cups and spoons
Textile Detergent
Dye
Non-iodized salt - 3 cups
Big 'ol pot (not aluminum)
Water to put in pot - 2 gallons for discharging and 3 for dyeing
Soda Ash - 1 tbsp for discharging and 1/3 cup for dyeing
Color Remover - 1/2 tsp
Calsolene oil - 2 tsp

Step 1: Discharge color

They have somewhat confusing instructions on their site. I pretty much followed the "Discharging With Color Remover" instructions. A note: you need to know the approximate weight of the stuff you're going to dye. I took all my jeans and fabric to the store and used the spring-scales in the grocery department to weigh it. The jeans were a little over 1 lb., and I think maybe the two shirts together were 1/2 lb. or so.

Here's my setup for discharging and dyeing. The big bag is of Soda Ash, and then the smaller one is color remover. I used a Nalgene to measure out my gallons, and a big ceramic-coated steel canning pot to do the dirty work. For doing the color discharging, it says not to use certain materials, like aluminium.

Put the 2 gallons water, 1 TBS soda ash, 1/2 tsp textile detergent and 1/2 tsp color remover in your big pot and mix it all in, but don't breathe it all in. Add your cloth, have it be damp, and heat 'er to a simmer. Simmer simmer, add another 1/4 tsp color remover every 15 minutes for an hour. Stir often for even discoloring. I don't remember how much I stirred but it was probably a lot because I am anal about those kinds of things. Remove, rinse, don't burn yourself and be careful where you pour out the pot because it is actually all full of the dye you just sucked out of your jeans and I ended up giving my bathtub a nice blue tint.

This was what my jeans looked like after I de-colored them, while they were still wet.


After they went through another wash and were a little bit drier (I don't remember if they're completely dry here or not... I don't think so.) they appear lighter, though not totally white. Which doesn't matter as I'm dying over them, but if for some reason you want some white jeans, know that it may take a lot of work.

Step 2: Pre-wash. Do this even if you didn't do the color discharging.
Dharma says to pre-wash using their special *detergent stuff* because it'll get out any grease and weirdness that might cause the dye to take weirdly. The thing that I RIT dyed had a greasy spot on it that ended up darker than the rest of the fabric, so this is a first step I don't skip. Hot water, 1/4 cup detergent. The detergent smells kind of bad. Everything used in this whole process smells kind of bad.

Step 2: Pasting up the dye
Note: if you are picky about color you'll REALLY have to know how much your article of clothing weighs so you can measure out the proper amount of dye. The Dharma instructions say to use 1 Tbsp dye per pound of fabric, but my understanding is that this is really really general. It will take more dye to get things to darker colors, generally. Using this confusing table, I find that I can get the premium color of Cobalt Blue for the low low price of just 2.4 Tbsp dye. I'm probably going to toss in an extra Tbsp of blue and one of Jet Black, because I want my jacket* to come out dark as shit. Next, you add water to get the dye to a paste. Then add a cup more of water to thin it out. Get all the little dye clumplets dissolved, because little dye clumplets landing on your fabric will create little dark spots and make your dye job uneven.

*So, uh, I half-wrote two different dyeing tutorials based on two different dye jobs I did: the Express jeans and the two shirts, and a jean jacket. In trying to merge them together they didn't quite line up in all places...

Step 3: Salt + water + dye?
Dissolve 3 cups non-iodized salt in 3 gallons warm water. I use a Nalgene to measure out my water. I also add 2 tsp calsolene oil because I have it around. Reading back over the instructions they've changed them since last time I did this and I can't figure out when exactly to add the dye, so I guess now's as good a time as ever.

Step 4: Stir a lot
Stir a lot for like 20 minutes. Don't get too excited though and splash dark blue dye all over your kitchen, save the excitement for when you will be rocking your sweet new-looking duds.

Step 5: Soda ash
Dissolve 1/3 cup soda ash in warm water. You want to be able to mix the soda ash in with it directly touching the fabric as little as possible, because that'll cause dark spots. So, mix 1/3 of the water+ash mixture in, wait 5 minutes. Mix 1/3 in again, wait 5. Then mix the remainder in. There is a lot of stirring that goes on here too. Stir & stir: Stir for 30 minutes to 1 hour. 1 hour for darker colors.

Dump: Dump out all your dye bath. Using a steel sink or something is a lot better than say, that nice (used-to-be) white bathtub in the apartment you're renting and probably won't be getting the deposit back now dammit. If you're not using dye fixative then you can at this point rinse out your garment in cool water until the water runs clear. If using dye fixative, dump the dye bath but don't rinse out the garment. Fill your pot back up with hot water, mix in 2 Tbsp. dye fixative, add your dyed thing and let soak for 30 minutes. Then you can rinse in cool water until the water runs clear.

This is me totally rockin' it in my three-piece dyed ensemble. This was the single-most uncluttered corner of my room only because the door opens inwards.

A note! I didn't use the color remover on the two shirts or on the jacket, just the jeans. The shirts and jacket came out fine, I was just worried about traces of the whisker-wash showing through the jeans dye job.

More notes! Often threads used in clothing have higher polyester content (try 100%) than the actual clothing, so it will not dye as well. Hence the lighter threads on the shirts and (if you can see it) on the jacket.

Still more notes! I've been really happy with the results of this dye. I think it fades at about the same rate as clothing that you purchase already dyed, maybe a touch faster. When I first dyed my jeans I asked my friend about the color and he questioned whether they were even reflecting back any light at all. Now, probably like 9 months later, they are closer to the navy blue that I expected them to be in the first place.

A final note! This is me as a Stegosaurus last Halloween. Ease of navigating through a bar while in costume is something I will consider for next year. Anyway, the pants were jeans that I dyed the same color as the corduroy tail (which I also dyed).