Printing with dye is a lot more tricksy than printing with ink; instead of sitting directly on top of your fabric, dye needs to be chemically bonded with the fibers. Dye powders are mixed with a thickening agent (sodium alginate) to make it print-able but, once the fabric is washed, the only thing remaining attached is the color. Your fabric ends up as soft as it was before you printed on it!The shiny, new bullet steamer comes into play after you're done printing but before you wash your fabric. All of those chemicals that make up the sodium alginate tend to cause the colors to bleed when you submerge your fabric in water... but with the steamer, the chemicals are STEAMED out! Here's a little slideshow about how we did it in class:
In order to protect our images, we wrapped our fabric in newsprint.
The fabric is fully encased so that it doesn't end up touching other parts of fabric or the metal steamer insert!
Then we rolled the wrapped fabric around the insert so that the paper won't touch the inside of the steamer silo. (Water condenses inside the steamer- but if our fabric gets wet, the colors will bleed before the chemicals have a chance to evaporate!)
After 35 min in the steamer, we remove our fabric and machine wash it in cold water with some tide and a color-catcher. Throw it in the dryer and done!We will be doing tests throughout the session to figure out the absolute best condition for the steamer to do it's job.
In order for students to be able to use/take advantage of the new steamer, you will have to take a dye printing class (check out the winter catalog, when it becomes available, for next sessions classes) or the upcoming Steamer Basics Workshop: Saturday, October 1st, 2-5pm. Hope to see you there!
--Nora
www.fiberistanora.com
www.fiberistanora.etsy.com
http://fiberistanora.blogspot.com
I enjoyed reading about your new steamer.
ReplyDeleteMy early career as a surface textile designer was nurtured in Chicago from taking an art major course at Hyde Park High School to exhibiting at the 57th Street Art and teaching batik classes at Jane Adams Hull House.
Close to fifty years later, I'm still using a home made steamer consisting of two restaurant size pots set inside each other.
One question - are you using baking soda in your print mix? It has always been my understanding that the steam process uses heat to create a chemical bond between fabric, dye and baking soda. The sodium alginate is a natural substance and simply allows the artist to control the flow of the dye mix.
Looking forward to reading more on your steamer, and the center.