My fabric dye disaster at the Portland studio

I was trying to dye a silk dress a deep emerald green for a client's order. The dye bath looked perfect, but when I pulled the dress out after 45 minutes, it had these awful, splotchy purple streaks all through it. I think the water in their old building had some mineral issue I didn't account for. I had to stay up all night hand-painting the whole thing with fabric markers to even it out. Has anyone else had a dye job go totally wrong because of the water where you work?

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4 Comments

lee186mo ago

Oh man, that sounds like a nightmare! Purple streaks from a green dye bath is wild. Did you test the water's pH or hardness before you started? I've heard some old pipes can really throw off the chemical balance.

2

nancy3266mo ago

Could be the fabric type, @lee18.

3

stella_scott965mo ago

My friend's silk top turned muddy brown in her mom's well water once.

1

ryan_black6mo ago

Forty five minutes is a long time for a silk dress to be in a dye bath with bad water. That's the part that really gets me. The minerals in the water must have had a full-on chemical reaction with the dye the whole time. I can't believe it turned purple instead of just a weird green. That had to be some seriously hard or weird pH water in that old building.

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