Dyeing with thermochromic pigments
Here is what I need to dye with the chromicolor pigments from Matsui:
The yarn is an organic cotton yarn hand-spun by New World textiles in North Carolina.
Chromicolor AQ ink which are the pigments and the Matsuminsol MR50 which is the binder.
A pretreatment called Durapretreat BR, or Fixer-P1.
A thermometer and an infrared thermometer.
and two cooking pots.
Here are the directions:
Here are the directions:
- If dyeing manually, it is recommended to use a deep cooking pot or other containers that can be heated to raise the temperature of the water. I just tested to see if the electric stoves could heat the water hot enough and they do.
- It is preferable to wash the threads before dyeing so that chemicals such as softener on fabric can be washed away.
- If the weight of the fabric is 200gm (0.44lbs), the amount of the water used is 16lbs. So as two skeins weight .40lbs I will need 14lbs of water.
or (to put it in a unit I understand) if the yarn weight is 200g I need 7.25L. So, as my yarn is 181,437g, I need 6.2L.
- I now need to add the pre-treatment into water. It should be 4% of the weight of the yarn. My yarn is .4lbs therefore I need 0.016lbs which is about 7.257 milliliters, about 1 teaspoon.
Afterwards, I drain the water and rinse well with cold water. It is better to keep the pre-treated fabric in water while preparing for a separate pot for Chromicolor. In a separate pot, I add 14lbs (6.2L) of water and heat it up to 158F. Then I add 20% of Chromicolor ink, stir for a while so that the ink can be spread out evenly ( Chromicolor type#27 will be transparent in hot water, so I will have to make sure to stir well).
I then take out the pre-treated fabric from the first pot, ring out the fabric to remove extra water and put it into the second pot. I keep stirring for 15~20mins.
- Now I have to add 10~15% of the Matsuminsol MR-50 binder to the AQ ink bath and stir 5~10mins.
I can now drain and rinse with cold water for a few minutes. As soon as I poor cold water on the thread the color changes. It is like magic.
I will now leave the threads to dry. I should take 1 day.