How To Stain Removal: Dye

Time and time again I've seen people post that the dye from their threads has run, ruining a project. I've written this post in the comment section of numerous blogs. It occured to me that I should just write the post once and refer people to it! (Smart girl.)

I developed this specialized knowledge when, after stitching Heart in Hand Wee Baby, I washed it. I had forgotten I had stitched with overdyeds (claret!). D'oh!

I was told that really cold water would (eventually) remove the dye from the places it shouldn't be. Unfortunately, it was summer in Los Angeles and our apartment was not air conditioned. Sticking a piece in cold water was going to be difficult. My first thought was to add ice to the water. So I put the stitchery into a brand-new dishpan with iced water. Left out on the counter, the water was warm in no time. So I put it in the refrigerator.

I changed the water twice a day. And after about a week, the dye was gone! It was a miracle. Actually it was science. I can't explain the science to you, but that doesn't mean it's not science.

Use this knowledge as appropriate.

Playing with Overdyed, Post Two

Thanks for all your comments on my last post! I knew I wasn't the only one to have these ideas, but I was sure there was a person or two who might not have thought of it. Today, I have done some really boring stitching on your behalf. To achieve these examples, I used whole lengths of overdyed (WDW Sugar Plum). I started with the thread at the same point to improve comparison. Without further ado, I give you the results.

This topmost sample is our starting point. I've crossed each ex as most designers prescribe. I worked left to right then right to left and back again. Lots of striping.

This second rectangle shows what happens to the stripey-ness when you stitch with the Danish method (half crosses all the way across then complete the cross on the return journey). You can see that the result is a tweedier effect. There are still some stripes as I think the color "reads" as the color of the top leg no matter what is underneath.

Now, what if we go really crazy? What if we strip two threads from the length and instead of aligning them "correctly," we place them ass-end to*? (I think this might produce similar results to what Denise suggested, using the loop method.) I realize I probably should have stitched one ex at a time as well as Danish method in this sample, but I went with the quicker Danish. Here, we achieve the effect of tweeding much better because many of the stitches have both colors in them. It really seems to tone down the fuschia. Still, there's a whopping stripe of lavender that shows up in the same place in each sample.

I think this experiment also might suggest that crossing each ex doesn't actually use that much more thread. There are 95 complete crosses in the first sample, 93 in the third (with seven half stitches, or 96.5 total) and 92 in the third (with eight half stitches, or 96 total), but YMMV there.

Another idea for floss-play would be to use a less stripey overdyed. Your tweed effect would be even more muted. In this project, I knew the blue thread was overdyed but somehow missed that the red was. The blue is crossed individually but the red is stitched Danish method. In the right light, you can tell the red isn't all one hue but not nearly to the extent of the blue.

So next time you're holding some overdyed floss in preparation for stitching, you might want to think about what effect you want to achieve.

Have you stitched overdyed flosses in a "different" way? Be sure to put a link in the comments so we can see the many possibilities of floss play!

*Crazy 50s slang, just one of the many services we provide.

Playing with Overdyed Floss, Post One

In my last stitching post I talked about playing with the overdyed floss, and you know, like one person noticed and wanted to see what I meant. Can you tell there's something different about each square's background?

On the "L" I stitched diagonally, starting in the upper right hand corner. You can see furrows when the lighting is right.

For the flower, I did a regular back and forth, stitching down the left side and up the right side. It was fortuitous that the shading came out light on the top and dark on the bottom.

For the heart, which is stitched back and forth horizontally, I stitched each line of the background vertically. You can tell most on the left hand side where some darker stripes run into the darker stripes on the heart.

Last, but not least, I stitched in a spiral of sorts (a spiral box if you will). Across then down then across and "up" (upside down). This one is harder to see but I do like how it is shaded.

You've seen before how I like playing with the overdyed floss. Remember when I decided that the flower on SamSarah's "My Whole Heart" shouldn't be stripey? In that case, I took random stitches around the flower. (f you click through, you can see the skips in the in-progress picture.)

I've also done what is called "forcing" when you cut the floss so that certain colors show up where you want them to on the design. I did this for the first time with Moss Creek's "Sumer is A-coming in" in the late 90s. Rae Iverson told me the technical term when I showed her what I had done. You can see that the brown floss is on the bottom center of the flowers. I made sure all the other queen stitches were pink.

But these are only a few examples of how you can play with overdyed floss. At stitch night, someone was talking about whether you had to cross each stitch when you worked with overdyed flosses (of course you don't). When I mentioned that I had been thinking about a post showing the different effects you could achieve with overdyeds, there was some nodding. So one more post to come!