Happy Friday little bots! I thought I would shake things up this week with a little project update/how-to of my up coming cosplay for Catbug. Everything thus far is coming along nicely for this costume and I'm hoping to be done with it by mid June so it will be ready for RTX. So here is how I went from a white polyester satin dress to a light blue polyester satin dress.
I was looking online for a cheep bubble dress for Catbug since my sewing skills are still noob stage and I don’t own a sewing machine. I found a supper cute bubble dress for under $30 on amazon but it is ivory. Just about every web site that I went to strongly discourages trying to dye polyester fabrics due to the synthetic fibers not being able to dye well and un-evenly.
I threw caution to the wind and bought the dress:
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| http://www.amazon.com/Strapless-Bubble-Cocktail-Holiday-Bridesmaid/dp/B00144I0HQ/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1399657962&sr=8-7&keywords=bubble+dress |
As you can see it is very shiny and white (I forgot to take a picture of this dress in real life so this is a photo off of amazon where I bought it). After reviewing what dyes would work best on polyester, I chose to you Idye poly from Jacquard in turquoise. I wanted a lighter blue than what regular blue would give me and also be closer to catbug's true color.
The Steps to dyeing your fabric:
First you want to wash your fabric either by hand or in the washing machine. I did it by hand with a little bit of dawn dish soap to get some of the residue and dirt on the dress. This step help to ensure that your fabric will dye evenly. DO NOT DRY YOUR FABRIC! Put it off to the side still wet, this will help absorb the dye easier and you don’t have to stand in front of the stove longer than need be.
Next you want to prep your area so you don’t accidentally dye your
counter tops or sink. I've heard that it was a bitch to remove this dye
from conter top and stainless steel sinks.
Next is to get a big pot large enough to fit your fabric, fill it with water, and bring it to a boil. Once it starts boiling add your dye pouch and color intensifier.
Stir until pouch is dissolved.
I did a test strip with two strings that came with the dress one I left in for 10 minutes the other for 30.
These were the results:
As you can see the longer you leave it in the more intense the color will be.
I sucked up my courage and plunged my garment into the boiling dye. I left my dress hanging instead of it still being submerged in water as a result I ended up fighting it for over 15 minutes to be completely submerged in water.
Now the real fun begins, you have to stand over the boiling pot for 30 minutes to an hour constantly stirring it to ensure that every inch is evenly dyed. You do not want tot end up with a blotch dress. Have a show playing in the background, I was watching Markiplier play some horror game. I enjoyed the commentary he had.
After an hour my dress looked like this:
So now it was time to rinse the dress and pray that it turned out.
When rinsing you want to do warm water with a little bit of mild detergent to remove excess dye so it wont rub off on you or other objects.
The most intense part is drying. You need to hang dry it and hope that it did not blotch up any where. It is hard to tell if it did while it is wet. Also the color looks darker than what it will be once dried.
After waiting all night my dress turned out better than what I could have hoped.
It is very wrinkly, but nothing like a little ironing wont help.
Over all I'm pleased with how the whole dyeing process went. If I every had to dye polyester again I would, but with a bigger pot.
Hope this help you if you decide to try to dye synthetic fabric. Keep in mind that the color might differ from what the color packaging might say. Defiantly do a test strip to see what color range you will get.
Still have more to do on this dress, like adding beading to the bodice to add a little flair. Right now it look dull and boring to me at least. If you have questions feel free to leave them in the comments below. Enjoy your weekend little bots, see you Monday for a weekly wrap-up.
See you on the other side
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