Dye, cream hose, dye!

[Alan H]

All this hassle over some socks. Tell you what... I'll give you all my mailing address, and you mail me all your cream-colored kilt hose. My last pair wore out at the heels about six weeks ago.

See? MUCH easier.

[piperdbh]

Speaking of such, I didn't see any requirement for that when using Rit. Does anyone know if it will make a difference if I use something like that or not?

The box/bottle says to add 1 cup of salt per dye bath.

[Pleater]

Tea and coffee require no mordant - it is getting the stain out that is the trick.

It is possible, but so difficult that I have usually bowed to fate and dyed a stained item to match rather than try to restore the former colour.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[CMcG]

I purchased some Dylon about a month ago and figure this thread would be a good place to share the method and results. I don't really know what I'm doing but did some Googling, read the instructions on the manufacturer's website, and looked at this thread.

Two pairs of cream hose: one mostly wool (not sure exact content because they belong to a friend), one wool synthetic blend.

1. Rinse in warm tap water, then briefly soak in warm water and some white vinegar. Squeeze (NOT wring) dry.

2. Dissolve 5 Tbsp salt in warm water in a metal pot.

3. Dissolve 1 pack Dylon dark green dye in a jar of warm water, shake well then add to the salt water.

4. Add hose to pot and enough warm water to cover, while stirring continuously.

5. Place on stove at medium low heat and bring to a simmer, while stirring continuously. (approx. 20 mins)

6. Turn off heat when the water has just started to show signs of bubbling. Let stand for 45 minutes, stir occasionally.

7. Wearing rubber gloves, remove hose to sink. Squeeze out excess dye, then rinse with warm water till it runs clear. Final rinse with cool water.

8. Squeeze out water and hang to dry.

The image I'm posting is against Douglas modern for reference. The wool/synthetic blend came out soft lovat green and the mostly wool came out dark green but a little lighter than the package. I'm pleased; they are now ACBW

[Mike in Dayton]

Looks good. I used dark brown Rit dye today and will post on my results tomorrow.

[Mike in Dayton]

Making good on my threat that I was going to post my results of changing the color of sock here we go. Yesterday I had a chance to try the RIT dye on a pair of white over-the-calf socks. The socks are GoldToe style 513H. They are made from 82% cotton, 17% nylon, and 1% spandex. Washing instructions call for machine wash warm, tumble dry low. They come in a pack of three. This picture shows the original white.



I was looking for tan but could not find that shade at the store I was in at the time. From their web site the shade I want does exists. I chose the dark brown with the chance they might come out lighter than the package indicated. Later I found more colors at Jo Ann’s Fabric store but that was after I dyed the first pair. I will repeat this process with the other colors I picked up.

Looking at the instructions on the bottle I chose the “sink” method but I used a 5-gallon bucket. The instructions call for hot water but don’t say what “hot” should be. I set this operation up in my utility room in the laundry tub. I ran the hot water until it was as hot as I could make it. From reading instructions from other web sites it appeared the hotter the better as long as the fabric can take it. I heated up 3 quarts of water to a boil in a pot on the stove. I dumped this in the bucket as the final 3-quarts of the 3-gallons. The resulting water temperature was 140F (60C). My hot water in the utility room is 130F (54C). Also I noted on the bottle instructions called for 1 cup of salt when dyeing cotton. I mixed all this up, wet the socks in hot water, and then tossed them in the bath. Instructions called of 30 to 60 minutes of continuous stirring. Since I wanted a lighter shade I went with 30 minutes (may have been a bad choice). Also I got bored so 30 minutes was it for continuous stir.

This is a picture of the setup. Rubber gloves are a must. The stir stick is a plastic paint stir which can be seen in the bucket.



This dye can stain horribly so make sure you have on an old kilt you don’t mind messing up. Set this up somewhere such that a spill or splash would not be a disaster. Like, maybe the house of someone you don’t like when they are not at home. ;) Whatever container you use for this operation will be stained beyond any point of restoration.

Once the 30 minutes were up I rinsed the socks, one at a time, in cool running water for about 5-minutes each. Run the water until you don’t see any color coming off of the socks. I then ran them through the washer in a rinse only cycle. Instructions call for washing with mild detergent after the rinse which I did. Prior to putting them in the wash I checked to see how even the color was. No problem at this point as the color looked even. When they came out of the wash I was horrified to find the color was not even. Dark and lighter areas all over the sock. I laid them out flat to dry while I contemplated what may have gone wrong. Much to my surprise once they dried the color was even on both. I think this was a false alarm. After the spin cycle parts of the sock were dryer than others so the moisture content made areas look darker. OK, I will take back some of the special English I used. Overall I think the resulting color may be attributed to the higher percentage of cotton. As for future washing I suspect you will want to wash the socks separately for several washes in the future just to make sure they don’t bleed into other garments. Rit sells a product to help stabilize and reduce fading. I found this at Jo Ann’s Fabric along with the tan I was looking for. The name is Dye Fixative. I have not tired the stabilizing agent yet.

This color is way too dark for what I wanted but I now have a process that I can repeat with a lighter shade.

Some additional thoughts on the process. 30 minutes in the bath may have been a mistake as it may not be enough time to fully absorb the dye. Also it is very important that the bath be continuously agitated. The washer method solves that problem. I was not going to try the washing machine as I am sure it will stain the plastic agitator. For future work I will go the entire 60 minutes and see if I can come up with some means of mechanical agitation. I suspect a short time in the bath and lack of continuous agitation could result in uneven color.

The next opportunity I get I will try the tan.



Mike

[Sir William]

Interesting. I've never heard of using tea to stain clothing on purpose!

The British Army found their white tropical uniform tunics drew fire while on operations in the Northwest Frontier, so dyed them with tea. Led to the adoption of the local Indian made cloth that we know today as "khaki."

US Marines who landed in Cuba in 1898 (Spanish-American War) found their usual landing uniform consisting of a dark blue coats, dark blue flannel shirt, and sky-blue wool trousers was a bit too warm for comfort so switched to their white cotton (or older linen issue) undress coats and and trousers. They then found they had the same problem as the British so dyed their uniforms with tea and coffee to get the same khaki effect. US sailors ashore with the Marines did the same to their whites. Later in the year both the Army and Marines began issuing khaki uniforms to replace the tea and coffee dyed uniforms.

[Tobus]

I did my dyeing this morning.

Here's a photo of my cream hose before (sorry about the shadows):



I used the Rit dye per the instructions, which called for hot water. I wouldn't use hot water if they were all wool or had a high wool content, but I figured it was OK considering the fact that these are mostly synthetic materials. But I made the dye solution much stronger than they recommended (I used the whole package of dye powder with one gallon of hot water). I read and re-read the instructions and never saw anything about using salt, so I didn't.

Here's a picture of the hose during the dyeing process. As you can see, the color was a dark forest green (which was what the package was supposed to do). I swirled the hose in this hot dye bath for about 45 minutes.



After rinsing in hot water, then varying stages of warm, lukewarm, and cold water, this is the color they ended up. This is actually a little better than I expected:



The final color came out a sort of medium green color with a faded look to it, sort of like Lovat green in a way. I'm very pleased, and I think these hose have a new life!

So I think the grand experiment was a success. Even high synthetic content hose can be dyed. It won't be a rich or deep color, but it is definitely an improvement over cream (for me, anyway).

[ali8780]

wow-- They turned out GREAT! Congratulations! I was afraid they wouldn't look so uniform in color saturation.

Job well done

[Abax]

The reason the Rit dye worked on the synthetic components of your hose is that nylon and polyester are hygroscopic (they can absorb water). Nylon holds the most water of the blends in your sock - about 8% I think. The acrylic probably doesn't absorb anything at all. The water carried the dye into the synthetics just like it did into the wool.

I've used Rit dye ever since I was a kid to color solid nylon parts (that start out white or off-white) for radio control model airplanes. The dye penetrates the surface of the nylon at least ten-thousandths of an inch (0.25 mm) and produces deep, rich colors after boiling the part in Rit dye for 5 - 15 minutes. Interestingly, a high water content makes nylon much tougher and less prone to shattering or breaking under extreme load.

I've used coffee to dye some cream hose brown and they came out great. I've also used fiber-reactive dyes like those sold by Dharma Trading Co. to dye Lewis hose (50% merino wool, 50% acrylic). I've done several shades of yellow, and although I can see some mottling where the acrylic didn't take as much dye as the wool, all the fibers turned yellow and the mottling is not visible from a foot or two away. For darker colors, you'd probably get an effect some garment manufacturers call "heather," where the overall color is the product of the mottling of several different shades.

Abax