Thread: Help! I'm Dyeing Over Here!

So, I'm trying to dye a white powermesh body stocking ruby red, using Rit Dye's "Ruby Red" liquid dye with the stovetop method.

The problem is that the sample swatches I practiced on turned out darker shades of pink rather than ruby red. The fabric is 90% nylon and 10% spandex.

Could it be that I used to much dye for the amount of water (about 4-5 cups water and 3/4 tbsp of dye is what I used)

What am I doing wrong?

I don't generally dye with RIT, so I am not much of an expert there. But I do want to mention that when you dye fabric that is partially spandex, that portion of the fabric is not going to pick up any dye. It's also tricky because spandex can be damaged by high heat. Paula Burch has a few things to say about that here:

FAQ: How can I dye spandex? How can I dye Lycra®? How can I dye elastane?

RIT is a combination of a direct dye and an acid dye. Direct dyes work great on fibers like cotton, and acid dyes work great on silk, wool, and nylon. So when you dye nylon with RIT, part of the dye mixture rinses right off the nylon, the direct dye part. The acid dye part bonds to it. So it's not unusual to get not quite the color you were expecting with RIT.

Part of the reason I don't dye with RIT is you need so much of it, like a whole box of it per stovetop dye bath. If I'm dyeing on the stove, I'm usually using one of the Jacquard Acid dyes which you calculate by weight-of-goods percentage.

Originally Posted by DarkestDesert

What am I doing wrong?

You are using RIT dye on spandex.

If you want spandex to dye true to the color you need to use a straight acid dye like the Jacquard dyes TigerB mentioned. I was able to get a true color with an acid dye that was an exact match for both silk and spandex/nylon using their product.

I have never gotten a true color from RIT when the fabric was either nylon or spandex.

Originally Posted by Ariadne_Eleni

I have never gotten a true color from RIT when the fabric was either nylon or spandex.

I guess that explains why my "teal" Rit dye came out bright turquoise on the power net body stockings, and my "wine" Rit dye came out more like a brick red. Sigh.

RIT dye is easy to get, but it's not as specific to fiber requirements as fiber reactive or acid dyes. I'm afraid it's kind of the "airport special" of dyes -- yeah, you can use it, but perhaps it's not quite what you want.

Thanks everyone for the input.
Good news is I managed to get it to "work" (as in it will work, but not what I wanted)
For future dye projects I will use appropriate dye.

What everyone else said RE nylon/spandex and dye. You wouldn't think that the 10% spandex would make that much of a difference but it does. I tried to get some white dance trunks dyed fuchsia and couldn't get them past light pink.

Reds are the most finicky colors to get just right. Even using silk dyes on silk, I find I often have to do multiple dye baths with several different reds in order to get truly deep reds and not some shade of dark pink.

What is really depressing if you are a lover of red is that even true reds often come out dark pink on video and photographs.

Originally Posted by ssipes

Reds are the most finicky colors to get just right. Even using silk dyes on silk, I find I often have to do multiple dye baths with several different reds in order to get truly deep reds and not some shade of dark pink.

That's my experience as well. When someone asks me for a "really red" veil, I get a sinking feeling. I know that what I get will be either too tomato or too pink, even using a red acid dye on the stove.