Wednesday, July 1, 2009

My Hand-Dyed Thread Has Bled and I Need Help


Over a year ago I was dyeing some fabric and decided to use the leftovers to dye some perle cotton. I painted on the dye so that it was chunks of color - I think it's called space dyeing. I couldn't wait to find the right project.
So I found a project for using the thread. I used the lazy daisy stitch to make leaves on a tree. It was perfect for a Fall scene. The gradation in the thread color made the changing color of the leaves look so natural (as natural as a lazy daisy stitch can look).
To add to the piece, I used the disappearing blue marker to test out the placement for a few appliques. After deciding where I wanted everything to be located. I needed to remove the blue marker. Not thinking about the hand-dyed thread, I dunked the whole piece and hung it outside over my desk railing to dry.

So you can imagine my horror when I went outside to check on my piece and the red dye had run! Why hadn't I just blotted the blue marker with a damp cloth? What was I thinking? I ran inside and looked to see if I had any Retayne or something. I did find Bubble Jet Rinse. After several soakings it did remove some of the dye from the background, but you can see there is still some of the red dye remaining. HELP! I know it looks a little fuzzy, but it is visible on my quilt. Please let me know if you have had any success removing dye that has bled to someplace that it doesn't belong. And any tips for what I could have done to the thread to have kept it from bleeding would be much appreciated.

4 comments:

  1. You never know what will work from time to time, or from fabric to fabric. BUT, I have had luck with synthapol in the wach water, and I throw in a dye catcher sheet for good measure. Cold water...and I always make sure that I use more water in the machine than what seems necessary. The sunthrapol is supposed to make the excess dye particles float away. Good luck.

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  2. Synthrapol was the first thing that I tried. I did not try the dye catcher.

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  3. How about using a bleach pen, if the background is white and you are careful?

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  4. The background is blue, but I was thinking about using a q-tip and using resolve.

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