Introduction

The purpose of this expeirement is to test if the pressure of a rubber band restraint is related to the resulting colors on the textile after dying. This webpage will explain the process of my restraint experiment and explain how I tested various controls and variables. I'm interested in finding out if certain dyes or combination of dyes lets more color seep through the bound part of the fabric. In this experiment I will be using the dyes Leaf Green, Blue #2, Yellow 135, and Sun Yellow on three-gram textile swatches. This experiment will also show if the rubber band is an effective restraint. I hypothesized that the material directly under the restraint applied more tightly will more closely resemble the L*a*b* values of the original fabric. In addition, I do not think that a certain dye or combination of dyes will affect the color of the material bound by the restraint.

Background

My interest in dyeing was initially sparked by Carol Lebaron's visit, and presentation of her various pieces. I was so impressed with what she was able to create simply by dyeing fabric. While I have always had a knack for the simple tie dye kits available at Wal-Mart, people having been dyeing in Europe dating back to 2000 BCE. In this project I have used the fabric wool, which historically was stained with both natural and dye colors by manufactures or in the domestic sphere. However, my experiment deals specifically with tie dyeing in that I am using a certain restraint, which results in a pattern on the fabric. Tye dyeing was introduced in the United States in the mid-1950's, and later became a symbol for the hippie generation to proclaim its independence and explore this form of art.

Materials

-Dyes: Leaf Green, Sun Yellow, Blue #2, Yellow 135

-RO water

-acetic acid

-rubber bands

Procedure

1) Place 3 gram wool samples in water baths to soak for at least 30 minutes, so that the fabric is totally saturated.

2) Obtain materials: RO water, dyes (leaf green, blue #2, yellow 135, sun yellow), acetic acid.

3) Put 200 mL of RO water in a 300mL beaker.

4) Heat water in the beaker to 41-43 degrees C.

5)Add 6 mL of acetic acid.

6) Add 80 drops of dye solution, and use pipet for each specific solution.

7) Take 3 gram sample, and squeeze out excess water.

8) Apply restraints - on one end of the textile attach a rubber band at a "loose" pressure (5 wraps), and at the other end apply a "tight"pressure (7 wraps).

9) Add fiber to beaker, and stir gently for 3-5 minutes to evenly distribute the dye.

10) Gradually raise temperature to a simmer, and stir intermittently for about 60 minutes (until the dye bath is exhausted and the color of the solution is colorless)

11) Allow dye bath to cool to room temperature, remove fiber and rinse it in warm water, squeeze out excess water and let air dry.

Observations and Data

Day 1 - Started the water at 35 degrees C (which I found was far too low, and later adopted a temperature from a setting of about 400 degrees C). On my first day of dyeing I set the looser band at 3 wraps, and increased the pressure on the other end with 5 wraps. After 10 minutes and a raised temperature, there were a few bubbles in each dye bath. After 20 minutes, the solution becoming more colorless, so it was beginning to exhaust. I did add more acetic acid at 50 minutes to speed up the exhaustion process. The main problem - the loose rubber bands were so loose that they fell off, and so a significant amount of dye seeped through. When dried, the center of the circle where the rubber band surrounded the fabric was lighter than the other area without applied pressure. NB - Rather than 108 drops, I only used 80 drops, and this seemed to be sufficient, and I will continue to use this amount.

Altered plans - Rather than changing the restraints, as originally planned, I am going to focus on the effect of how time and different combinations of dyes effect the restraint dyeing process.

Day 2 - Start time - 1:45 pm. End time - 2:43 pm.

For the loose pressure I applied 5 wraps, and for the tight I applied 7 wraps. The yellow 135 dye bath started bubbling after 7 minutes. Blue #2 took the longest to begin bubbling. However, at 17 minutes all solutions were bubbling, and gas was being emitted. In all solutions, the rubber bands are surfacing to the top of the solution, maybe because of the significant amount of bubbling or because they simply float. The sun yellow is bubbling so much, with big bubbles, it is making a deep popping noise every few minutes, so I move it to the edge of the hot plate. And, after 45 minutes the sun yellow appears to be the most exhausted because of the colorless quality of its dye bath. All dye bath solutions look to be exhausted after 50 minutes. The volumes of the solutions has also changed before and after the dyeing. Sun yellow went from 200mL to 150 mL, yellow 135 went from 200mL to 170 mL, and blue #2 went from 200mL to 148mL.

2nd Batch - Start time - 2:15pm End time- 3:10pm. I am using the same variables, namely the dyes, for a second time to see if results varied. Most aspects are similar to my earlier experiment, and there are bubbles in all baths at 13 minutes. Also similar to previously, the sun yellow appears to be exhausting relatively quickly. The hot plate was at 400 degrees C. The volumes of the solutions also changed. The sun yellow went from 200mL to 150mL, the yellow 135 went from 200mL, and the blue #2 went from 200mL to 149mL.

After I removed the restraints - I have found that while the results are aesthetically pleasing, the rubber band restraint can be tricky because if there is one little section which is not covered the dye will absorb, so this might make using the colorimeter difficult. Luckily, now I can start making sure that the section I am wrapping is totally covered, so I can get a more accurate read.

Day 3 - Start time -1:40pm End time - 2:35pm. I used the pressure of 5 and 7 wraps because it worked out nicely on Day 2. This is the first day of working with mixtures of dyes. The temperature of the hot plate is 400 degrees C. All solutions have started to bubble at 5 minutes, and the solutions with yellow 135 seem to have more intense bubbling. In all dye baths the fabric with the rubber bands around them are rising up, and aren't getting as much dye on them, so I am stirring frequently. These solutions seem to be exhausting faster than the solid dyes, maybe because of the combination of dyes. At the end of dyeing:

blue #2 and yellow 135- 95 degrees C, went from 200mL to 150mL/ blue #2 and sun yellow - 97 degrees C, went from 200mL to 150mL/ sun yellow and yellow 135 - 96 degrees C, went from 200mL to 180mL.

Batch 2 - Start-2:55pm End-3:25pm. I am only leaving these in for 30 minutes to see if there is any effect on the colors, and if more, less, or any dye seeps through where the restraints are tied. Also, the dyes are half and half, so 40 drops of each dye. All bubbling at 15 minutes, and are having similar results to earlier. The solutions with yellow 135 seem to be exhausting quickly, although after 30 minutes no solution is totally colorless. Also, all the solutions stayed at 200mL volume. Finally the temperatures of the baths were lower: blue #2 and sun yellow - 90 degrees C, blue #2 and yellow 135- 85 degrees c, sun yellow and yellow 135- 86 degrees C.

Day 4 - Start-9:40am End-10:10am. I doing the 30 minute round on this day as the time is limited, but I am keeping the constant 5 and 7 wraps, and plan on doing the full hour during lab. For this batch I am mixing blue #2, sun yellow, and yellow 135 with leaf green. 40 drops of each so that it will add up to 80 drops. The earliest to start bubbling is leaf green and sun yellow, and continue to bubble the most. At 20 minutes all solution have begun to exhaust and are bubbling. At the end of the 30 minutes, all dyes have stayed at 200mL. Lg (leaf green) and blue #2 - 90 degrees C/ Lg and yellow 135 - 95 degrees C/ Lg and sun yellow - 93 degrees C. There is also significant color in the dye baths.

Day 5- Start 1:45pm End 2:47 pm. This batch will soak for about 1 hour to allow for complete exhaustion. Also, the mixtures are half and half of each dye. So 40 drops of leaf green mixed with 40 drops of blue #2, yellow 135, or sun yellow. The hot plate is at 400 degrees C. After 5 minutes the lg (leaf green) and yellow 135 are bubbling, and after 10 minutes the solutions with yellows appear to be exhausting. In lg an blue #2 there is heavy bubbling at 15 minutes. After 30 minutes all solutions are becoming increasingly colorless. The lg and blue #2 are taking a long time to exhaust so I added 3mL of acetic acid to quicken the process. Temperatures - lg and blue #2 at 90 degrees C, lg and sun yellow at 95 degrees C, lg and yellow 135 at 100 degrees C. Lg and blue #2 went from 200mL to 175mL, lg and yellow 135 went from 200mL to 100mL, lg and sun yellow went from 200mL to 150 degrees C.

Changes

Along my experiment journey, I did make some major changes to my original plan. First, I did not use any restraint other than a rubber band, so I did not experiment with thread or a C-clamp. I thought that keeping the rubber band consistent would have a unifying effect that I was trying to achieve. I also added the time element. I decided it would be interesting to test the effects that a difference of 30 minutes would have on my results. This ended up being fascinating because while the restraint part of the fabric changed, the unbounded fabric ended up having different coloring than I expected.

Conclusions

*In order to understand the conclusions I came to by analyzing and combining the data I gathered, a clear description of the L*a*b* system of color is essential. The L aspect describes the lightness of color, so the more positive the value is the more white it is, while negative values correspond to the color's darkness. For a*, the negative values indicate green and positive values indicate red. Finally, the b* aspect negative values indicate blue and positive values indicate yellow.

Original swatch values (no color application) - L+88.28 a-1.15 b+12.84

I hypothesized that the tighter restraint would be more effective in holding the original color of the material, and after testing with the colors leaf green, yellow 135, sun yellow and blue #2 I found I was correct. The colorimeter results of swatches 7-9 prove that on the end with only 5 wraps more color came through the fabrics. So, for swatch 7 the higher positive indicates more yellow was present on the fabric with a looser rubber band applied. There were drastic results from the leaf green swatch 3 because I only did 5 and 3 wraps. For swatch 3, the L factor is revealing because for 5 wraps the L is +84.96, and for 3 wraps it is +54.96, significantly lower.

I also tested different combinations of dyes and the amount of time the fabric was in the bath. I hypothesized that the longer fabric was immersed in the solution the more the dye would seep through. While my results varied, for the most part this was accurate. For the combinations of blue #2, sun yellow, and yellow 135 with leaf green, respectively, the blue #2 combination supports my argument. The b part of the analysis for 7 wraps (-2.33), which was in the dye for 30 min, is closer to the original than the same aspect for the fabric in the bath for 1 hour because it was -7.04. So, the 30 minute swatch is closer because the dye had less time to seep through. I had similar results with the yellow dye combinations, especially the leaf green and sun yellow combination. For the 5 wrap setting the 30 minute b aspect was +14.95, and the correlating 1 hour swatch was +20.77, indicating that the longer the swatch was in the dye bath the more the dye will come through in the fabric.

Overall, this experiment was successful because for the most part, my hypothesis was accurate for the altered plan. As I had anticipated the fabric under tighter restraints was more similar to the original un dyed swatch. The 7 wrap end of the fabric was not only closer to the original, but the ring created tended to be thicker than on the 5 wrap end. This is probably because there were more wraps creating a thicker band. The time aspect of my project was also a success as the tests I did with 30 minutes swatches were closer to the original than the 1 hour tests because the dye had less time seep through.

Links

http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/12869.html

http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/FAQ/history_tiedye.shtml

Other References

Mary Haviland, Faculty Biennial essay

Acknowledgements

First and foremost I want to thank Dr. Bordley and Professor Fitz for their answering of endless questions, and constant encouragement. But the initial interest in dyeing was a result of Carol Lebaron's visit and lecture. Her work and ideas are the thread that runs through my experiment and final project. She served as an inspiration for me especially because the first time she helped in lab, she suggested and helped me work with restraints, which became the basis for my work.