Ask LaBricoleuse: Shibori at home?

naeelah asks:

I'm hoping to start teaching myself more about shibori (and other resist dying techniques) as well as silk painting. It's easy enough to find resources on the dye techniques, but I'm feeling a bit clueless about the actual dyes, so I just wondered if you can recommend any particular dye brands or if you have any tips for setting up a home dye shop. (I think I'll mostly be working with smaller pieces of fabric and narrow pieces that are a few meters long.)

I'll be using mostly silk and cotton. One of the only big dye stores I'm aware of is Dharma Trading (.com), so I'm looking at their catalog, but if you know of any others, I'd be happy to hear them. Their catalog is nicely split up by dye techniques, and they have a lot of information on their dyes, but that can only tell me so much.

I hesitate to go into specific dye brands because i'm holding out for a sponsorship contract like basketball stars get with shoes, or rockstars get with guitar manufacturers.

Ok, i'm BS-ing, but i do feel like i can't necessarily recommend one brand over another, as i've not tried every brand out there. What i can do is tell you what i typically use, though, and maybe that'll be a good starting point for dipping into home-dyeing.

For shibori techniques in your home, i would suggest using fiber reactive cold-process dyes. They're fairly straightforward in processing, and you can do them in crappy buckets in a basement or backyard and don't have to deal with them in a kitchen situation, which is essential for home dyeing. (It freaks me right out when people dye in the same space they cook food in.)

I always use Pro Chemical's Fiber-Reactive MX dyes, and usually buy them straight from the manufacturer: http://www.prochemical.com/ ProChem's website is really excellent to surf through--they have great instructional write-ups on how to use all their dyes that are structured like a recipe, and all the Material Safety Data Sheets for their products are accessible online. The MX dyes in particle form are harmful to breathe, so if you go this route make sure you mix them in a ventilated space with particulate respiratory protection. Read through the instructions fully before you order stuff, because depending on what fiber you are dyeing you will need to order and add different chemical additives (soda ash, urea, etc).

Dharma carries the ProChem MX dyes, and can be a good place to order from if you want to also order other brands/supplies/chemicals, blank garments, equipment, etc. I like Dharma--i've been ordering from them since 1993, and they are always really helpful about recommending products, good service, and great about rectifying any problems (lost packages, wrong product, etc).

For silk painting--something i'm doing literally right now (it's hanging to dry) and will write up in a future post once our next show opens--i use Presist water-soluble resist and Dye-Na-Flow silk paints. I use these products because they are easy to use, fast, and clean up quick, all of which is of primary concern in theatre. There are other methods and products out there that are similar (Jacquard silk paints, water-based gutta) that i've used too and work well, and others that are more time-consuming and difficult to deal with. The more you get into it and the more time and effort and artistic detail you might want to put in, maybe you'd want to branch out. For a beginner, the flowable silk paints and water-based resists are probably easiest to try.

The only other company i order from is Aljo, who have a crappy website and i use them only for super-toxic scary synthetic dyes (not something you'd be doing in the home anyhow).

Regarding dyeing in the home, again, i think the cold-process dyes are a good choice because you can do them outdoors or somewhere that's NOT your kitchen. I think if you want to do hot-process dyes at home where you need to boil a bath or something, you are better off taking a dedicated dye-pot and a tabletop stove-eye and plugging it in out in the garage than you are dyeing on the same stove you cook dinner on. You will probably want to invest in some tarps for the floor, some gloves and a rubber/pvc apron, maybe some splashproof goggles. You will want a clothesline or folding clothes dryer to hang things on, some dedicated measuring spoons and cups, some tongs and a big spoon--none of which should come from the kitchen. You'll also want some bleach, so you can run an empty "bleach load" through your washer after you use it to rinse your dyed fabrics; this'll keep your subsequent actual laundry from getting speckled or weirdly dingey or whatever from residual dye. Most of this can be found at the Dollar General or similar so it's not a big $$ outlay to do it up safely.

You didn't ask about resources for technique, but i do want to plug the book Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing by Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada. It's an AWESOME resource full of great instructive photos (albeit black and white ones) for all kinds of techniques. It's IMO the best book out there on the subject.

On LJ, you might want to check out the communities dyeingfiber and fiber_dyeing, the former of which focuses on dyeing raw fiber for spinning and the latter on dyeing in general. They can be good communities for posing questions to folks of all degrees of expertise, but always research safety questions yourself through the MSDS for products--i find that the degree of laxity when it comes to safety, particularly with home crafting, is alarming online. Folks think that because something is marked "non-toxic" they can eat it, or because it makes them feel "funny" when they inhale vapors that is somehow cool and not inviting brain tumors and lung cancer or similar.

Hopefully this answers your questions!