50 shades of purple: a tutorial on how (not) to dye fabric

49 shades of purple

Hi everyone. It is cold outside but thanks to some projects it is pretty warm at my house.
Years ago when I started learning about making ballet costumes, I also began learning about dying fabric.  I blame my friend Scott for convincing me that it really was not that hard, he would say: "I can make spaghetti and dip dye fabric side by side", and of course, really, I should just own my own sins since I always think and say: "how hard can it be"?
If you read an earlier post you already know that this thinking has gotten me into trouble before. Still, I am clearly an optimist and having successfully dyed a lot of fabric, maybe I had just become complacent.
Well in the last few weeks I found out that dyeing fabric can be hard, very hard.
I had a project that required some custom dyed purple lycra, mesh, lace and silk. I knew that these fabrics can be dyed with acid dyes such as Jaquard, RIT, IDye natural and Procion dyes. I also knew that I needed to weigh the fabric (so as to use enough dye), wash it with a mild soap, heat the dye, add some soap to the dye bath and test samples of the fabric before dyeing the actual items. Simple right? Wrong

The first things I found out was: just because a supplier says that a particular fabric has a certain fabric content doesn't mean it does. "Everyone lies" to quote House! Check and double check fabric content. Lycra/Spandex, nylon, and silk will all dye with acid dyes such as Jaquard, RIT, IDye natural and a few others. Polyester will not dye; if a fabric has more than 50% polyester it will dramatically change how the fabric dyes. Although the mesh I used was supposed to be nylon/lycra it was not.
I ended up with a strange, grey plum color.

White "nylon" mesh dyed with Rit (bottom left) then overdyed with IDye polyester

You can now get IDye polyester, a special dye for home dying polyester, but it is a special dye, that can only be special ordered as most stores do not carry it.
The second thing I learned is that every batch of dye is unique; it always requires multiple tests and it is best to let the fabric dry completely to check the color.

Left to right (top): Nylon Spandex leotard with nylon lace, stretch satin,  polyester mesh

; bottom: nylon mesh

The third thing is that when you dye different fabrics in the same dye bath, they take the dye in their own unique way. The silk I used had a pattern in it, and it caused the lilac-purple dye to "split".

Example of a "split" dye

The background fabric took the blue tones and the stripe took the reds, so that I ended up with a strange blue and pink striped piece of fabric. Split dye can be very interesting and beautiful but for my purposes it was not what I wanted. I needed my leotard to be an even, ombre dye. Eventually I did manage to get this.

Nylon spandex and nylon mesh dyed with Lilac Jaquard dye

White satin spandex and white stretch lace (both nylon)

I am very fortunate to have a father who is a dye chemist and a mother-in-law who is an expert spinner, weaver and fabric dyer, so I called in their help. My mom and dad arrived just before Christmas to find my kitchen taped up with drop clothes, pots of smelly dye bubbeling on the stove and me in old clothes, face mask, rubber gloves and goggles.

Part of my kitchen counter + samples.

It is a very, very good idea to wear old clothing and to use multiple drop cloths because you can bet serious money that you will have drips, splashes and splotches, and that they will always find that little gap in your drop cloth!! The polyester dyes, dye everything: linoleum, melamie counters, they even seem to be able to penetrate varnished on wood. I still am trying to remove some little droplets in the kitchen but I think that sanding down the cupboards and revarnishing and repainting are my only option.
Another thing is to use glass if possible or stainless steel, not aluminium or plastic. The dye will react with all of the containers but especially aluminium and plastic. Also, never use bowls, measuring cups, spoons etc. that you use for dyeing for food. No matter how well you wash and scrub, trace amounts remain and the dyes are toxic and carcinogens.
Together with my dad I determined that it was best to use distilled water, measure the pH (I ended up adding a little white vinegar to get that around 6.5-5 so slightly acidic), get the temperature no higher than 80 C and carefully time the time in the dye bath. For polyester dyes, you need to actually boil up the dye, with the fabric and then simmer for 30 to 60 minutes. Not all fabrics can handle that, nylon for instance can melt!.
After testing the dye mixture, again, and again, and 25 more times,  I was finally satisfied and dyed my fabrics. Here is the end result:

end result of fabric dyeing

Yes, you are correct, I still ended up with a spectrum of shades of purple. At least when I was done I had the same "tone" of purple, if not the same shade, and it looked good for my application.
I think the "moral" of this tale is that you need to take the time to test, try not to mix too many fabrics with different fiber contents as they take the dye in different ways, resulting in dye splitting and to try to keep time, heat, water quality and pH stable.

More headpieces: Raymonda, Le Corsaire, La Esmeralda, Diana and Acteaon etc.

I confess I went a little crazy the other day and started making some headpieces...at present I am up to 12 and counting. What brought this on? Cabin fever? (it is currently snowing and cold) Just my average over-enthusiasm? Huge popular demand? Well a little bit of everything. I received several request over at my Etsy store for (unusual) headpieces but had nothing to offer. Since everyone wanted them yesterday, well I was unable to oblige. Also, I like making headpieces: all that glitter, all those jewels and laces it is just the most fun about costuming.
I also discovered that I had materials, lots and lots of materials and dh said that I could not bring another item into the house without getting rid of something. So.....
Many of the basic headpiece shapes were made according to Claudia Folts' instructions for tulle princess headpieces, as described in her book "Finishing touches",  some headpieces I saw online and the rest came from my very active imagination.
Here are some of the finished ones:
Several could be for Arabian or Oriental themed ballet roles and depending on the colors of the  costume (pinks, purple, blues etc.) would work.

La Bayadiere, Arabian style headpiece in pink, burgundy and purple modeled by Lydia

La Bayadiere, Arabian etc. in pink/burgundy and purple tulle

I made two green and gold headpieces  that would be great for La Esmeralda.One is a wire circlet with flat sequins while the other is built on a horsehair frame and has coin trim on it.

Swarovski hot fix stones along the front.

Most of the crystals I used were sewn or wired by hand and were Chinese crystals. They had been sold to me as Swarovski but when I received them it was clear to me that they were not (the facets on the crystals were not uniform or the coatings looked "oily). It would have cost too much to send them back and I figured that if I clearly label them as what they are (i.e. made in China imitations) and charged a much lower price for these headpieces than it would be okay to use them. The stones do still sparkle more than acrylic and they look good especially when inter-spaced with real Swarovski.  From now on I will only order from companies that can guarantee that the crystals are Swarovski or Precosia (i.e. they only come in factory sealed packs).
I made two headpiece with different shades of blue tulle and gold or silver trim, which would look lovely with a blue and gold or a blue and silver tutu. Possible ballet roles would be Raymonda, Le Corsaire or even La Bayadere: 

This headpiece could be for and Arabian themed role such as Solor (if it was turned the other way or had a feather added, or even something like the Pharoh's daughter:

I was very happy that I received a request for a custom made Raymonda headpiece for a lovely dancer in Florida. I shipped it out this morning and I am hoping that she will be very happy with it because it was so much more beautiful than the photo lets on. I also hope that I will get some great press from it because if she likes it and her friends like it etc. than I might get a few more customers.

A Raymonda headpiece made for a customer in royal blue, black velvet and dark purple

Having a custom order and another sale motivated me to finish more.
The headpiece that is my current favorite is the Diana and Actaeon headpiece. It is a wreath of gold plastic leaves dotted with hand-sewn red Chinese bicone crystals.

Diana headpiece

After a lot of fiddeling around I made a redish-gold center moon applique and added some large crystal AB rhinestones to it. All of these items are so hard to photograph but I think this gives a pretty good idea of what it looks like.

Completed Diana headpiece with center moon shaped jewel

I am also working on one in silver and pale blue, possibly with some silver stars and a Talisman or other oriental princess crown using a very pretty lace.

Finally I have been learning how to make flowers using flower petals and making real silk flowers. I found an online book/picture tutorial from Prudence millinery (she makes hats for Vivienne Westwood among others) which was very good. I started by dying some silk organza I had into lovely sorbet colors and once I get my sewing room in a bit more shape, I'll start making the flowers. I'll keep you posted!

Spanish skirts and practice tutus

Several weeks ago, I blogged about the Spanish skirts and the practice tutus I had been making. Thanks to Stephanie Harris of Harris photographyhttps://www.facebook.com/pages/Harris-Photgraphy/366353280120806?ref=ts&fref=ts and Annelise, Catherine, Bridget and Gabrielle, soloists and senior dancers at the Ithaca Ballet for participating in my first photo shoot.
The costumes highlighted each individual dancers unique beauty and style (and I ran out of adjectives to describe them; I mean how many ways can you state the obvious that these girls look magnificent?!)

Bridget and Catherine look gorgeous in these Spanish skirts

 Bridget looks regal and beautiful in this four tiered Spanish skirt in black and

Soloist Catherine embodies a Spanish princess in this Spanish skirt with matching mantilla and rose headpiece

Annelise personifies the icy beauty of the Snow Queen.
This costume includes a stunning Russian style headpiece

Practice tutus are available for sale at my Etsy site or via SharpSewingNY facebook page.

These tutus are perfect for class: 

Practice tutus in pink, white and black
Perfect for class 

 

Rehearsal: 

Catherine soars in her practice tutu, customized with a double hand-pleated top layer.

Or Performance:

Catherine, Bridget and Annelise take a bow

Catherine, Bridget and Annelise

Soloists Catherine (at left) and Annelise (at right) model their practice tutus
Catherine's tutu has a double hand-pleated top layer and Annelelise's tutu is custom sized.

The dancer's also modeled some of the custom made items that I offer:

Annelise models a custom made Sugar plum performance tutu

ruffle, ruffle, ruffle= new tutus and some Spanish skirts

I finally bit the bullet and have made a start on new tutus. One of my big dreams is to build a collection of costumes to offer for rent or sale and have real live people rent or buy them. My dreams are big but my budget and wallet are not. Also, very few people "know" my work.  Seriously, would you shell out upwards of $500 to a complete stranger to make something for you? No, neither would I.
I am hoping though that a few people might be willing to take a chance of renting something, see the quality of my work and then decide to buy.
Efin, what have I started making?
Over the summer I attended Tutu.com's tutu school and besides working really really hard, I learned to make some beautiful items including Spanish skirts. I also went to a mill store with my mother and found some wonderful black and burgundy fabric which just had that Latin feel to it.

A Spanish skirt takes between 40-42 yards of ruffled lace trim which even at the low price of 50 cents a yard gets pricy. You can imagine how  happy I was to find several yards of lovely burgundy lace at a thrift store for next to nothing. All it required was for me to cut it into strips and ruffle it.

Strips of lace to be ruffled for trim

Next I cut out the fabric for the under skirt and the four tiers of ruffles and started ruffling.

Underskirt, lace strips and fabric ruffles

Ruffling lace for trim

After ruffling lace for what seemed like days, I sewed my trim to the fabric layers of the skirt and then went back to ruffling the fabric layers.

First ruffled layer sewn onto underskirt

After each layer was ruffled, it had to be pinned and sewn onto the underskirt. The fabric I used didn't ruffle as tightly as the sparkle organza I had used previously so I spent a lot of time pulling up the gathering threads. Still as each layer was sewn on the skirt began to take on a lovely shape.

layer 2 sewn on, half way there

Layer 3, one more layer to go!

Once I reached the top layer, there was a lot of lace and fabric but the skirts really looked good. After the top layer was sewn on, the basque was attached, then hooks and eyes and voila, a super ruffly Spanish skirt.

The other projects I worked on was a tutu for a competition. I decide to use a stretch satin to make the bodice and basque since i had found 12 yards of it a local thrift store again for next to nothing. The fabric was great to work with (surprisingly easy) but once made I was not happy with how it looked.

The Snow Queen (by Hans Christen Anderson )

costume

The sheen on the satin made the whole ensemble a little too Halloween costume like. Good news was that the costume was for a Halloween contest but it wasn't what I had originally envisioned. I may some day remake this in a silk chiffon.

Kokoshnick style headpiece

Together with dh, I did make a stunning headpiece. It was done as a Russian kokshnik, with silver mesh, diamante jewels, crystals and some lovely trims. The front diamond was made of a vintage diamante triangle (possibly it was a brooch or a belt buckle).

white practice tutu

The final thing I worked on were three practice tutus, two black and one white. Thanks to all I had learned at tutu school (and the fact that I had surpassed the 90th tutu mark) these went together much, much easier than in the past and the result was even better.
My next project will be to finally take the online craftsy class, the couture dress, I started on this summer and give tutus a rest for a few weeks.

New Nutcracker costumes

 Two years ago now, Scott Dolphin (scottdolphinstudio.com) and I started the difficult process of making new Nutcracker costumes. Since Nutcracker is the money maker for any ballet company, the costumes for it need to be beautiful and in good shape.
After more than 25 years of hard wearing, ours were well past needing to be replaced.

 Old Waltz of the flowers costumes

Scott made new designs for the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Waltz demi-soloists costumes that were style updates of the original costumes.
 I made new tutus for the Waltz corps de ballet, Waltz demi-Soloists, Dew Drop fairy, and the Sugar Plum fairy.
The artistic director wanted copies of the original costumes not new costumes which meant that I had to find tutu net in the same colors. I took the original tutus to the store and tried to find matching colors but had little luck.

Old Dew drop bodice, Old Sugar Plum, Old Waltz demi-solist costumes

As I have mentioned previously, there is a fashion in colors and after 25+ years, the colors that these tutus were made of were no longer available. It did not help that the tutus had also faded significantly and so the colors were no longer true. I found out after I made the tutus that the original corps de ballet tutus were red and gold (not rose pink, orange and peach as I thought), the demi-soloists were olive green and teal (not lime green and grey blue), Dew drop was white and silver (not ivory and grey) and Sugar Plum was white with almost bubble gum pink layers and pants.
The Dew Drop fairy was easy as white and white sparkle tutu net is widely available. The pink tutu net for Sugar plum was also not a problem. Scott choose a lovely dusty rose velvet for Sugar plum's new bodice and basque. He also designed the new demi-soloists to be up-side down bachelor buttons in shades of Celedon green, light sapphire blue, Williamsburg blue and gold.
Scott and I tried contacting every supplier of tutu net we could find but were unable to find the colors we (thought) we wanted, when we wanted it. Standard tutu net comes in a fairly limited range of colors: white, ivory, rose pink, hunter green, black etc. Everything is possible with enough time and money (i.e. special ordering and special manufacturing) but our budget did not run to that. The solution was to use tulle for some of the layers, as it was readily available in more suitable colors and hand dyeing lots of white netting. The only orange I had been able to find was extremely bright Halloween orange, which was not what was needed.

Hand dyeing netting for waltz corp tutus

Scott was an expert at dying fabrics and had dyed the tutu pants for me. I on the other hand had never dyed anything. At that point we were faced with an emergency because it was less than a month to the performance, I had six half made corps tutus, no light gold tutu net and Scott was busy making other costumes.
"How hard could it be"? were my famous last words.
Well I soon found out. A few tips to the novel, tutu net dyer:
1) Go to the RIT  site and read all the instructions, many times, write them down carefully before starting
2) Do your dying during day-light, not starting at say 9 p.m. after your children have gone to bed
3) Always do several test strips to make sure you get the color you want, not what you think it is on the screen.
4) When washing the netting after dying, use even less soap then you think you need.

I started the process of dying, eleven yards of tutu net (cut into strips), at around 10 p.m. By the time I had heated up the dye, dyed the net, washed it out in copious amounts of water to remove the unused dye and put it into my washing machine to wash it was late, very late (or early as it was way after midnight). I knew from washing out the old tutus in my bathtub, that a little soap made a lot of bubbles. Eleven yards of tutu net, even with 1 teaspoon of Woolite makes a lot of bubbles when agitated in a washing machine. I watched in horror as the little window on my front-loading washing machine filled up with bubbles and then slowly orange foam started to erupt from the washing machine hose as the rinse cycle started! Not what you want at 2 a.m. believe me.

I ran the rinse cycle a second time and that took care of the problem. I then had to hang the net up to dry as it could not go in the dryer. In the end the color was a perfect match to the corp de ballet tutu if not the original. I felt a bit like a crazy Rapunzel with all that orange netting.

Eleven yards of hand dyed tutu net, and the old Waltz tutus

After that is was a matter of pleating and sewing like crazy to get the tutus finished.  My assistant Carrie and I sewed as if we were possessed and sewed the last ruffle on the day before the dress rehearsal. The day before the performance, I was still steaming and tacking the corps tutus, Scott was finishing the demi-soloists and Sugar Plum and we were both a bit insane at that point.

New Waltz corp de ballet tutu

Waltz demi-soloist tutu

 New Sugar Plum tutu before tacking

Here is what the costumes looked like upon completion.

New Waltz Demi-solist costume, designed by Scott Dolphin, tutu by Hilary Sharp

New Sugar Plum tutu, designed by Scott Dolphin

 New Sugar Plum Bodice, design Scott Dolphin

Last year I  made a new maid's dress and a second Sugar plum costume

Second Sugar plum bodice, plate and tutu by Hilary Sharp

and an exact copy of the Marzipan girl's costume (see below). The original costume was too fragile to be altered any more. The original costume was made of a lilac taffeta and a light two tone teal fabric (possibly a sateen ) and had a Schifli lace overlay.

 Bodice of original Marzipan

Many years ago, when the original costume had been made, Schifili laces were still manufactured in New Jersey and other mills in the United States. All have gone out of business. Schifli laces are now only made in Switzerland, India and China and are very expensive,  starting at $150/yd. I was extremely lucky to find some affordable lace at Lacemart. The lady who runs this store, collects laces mostly bought from the New Jersey factories when they went out of business.
At this point I was a pro at dying fabric, but it still took me about six hours of making test strips, and then dying the actual fabric to get the right shade of teal. The result was very convincing and it fit the dancer perfectly.The original costume had been made for a much smaller dancer and so was much too short in the bodice and skirt for the other dancer.  Dancing is hard on costumes and this costume had been in constant use for over 15 years being let out and taken in for many dancers. Having a second costume in a different size, is always helpful.
Initially there was a plan to update the Waltz corps de ballet bodices but this had to be put off due to time and budget constraints. To see what the costumes looked like go to  Nutcracker on stage

 New Marzipan dress

Original Marzipan dress