dyed samples in the studio

A few months ago I ordered a new product, Color Magnet, along with my usual dyes and chemicals. It’s a “dye attractant,” supposed to create darker color on fabric where it is applied. So, I thought I’d try it out.

Color Magnet from Jacquard

I tested it on both cotton and silk with four mixed dye colors: Kingfisher Blue and Lime Squeeze from Dharma and Butterscotch and Olive from ProChem. I didn’t use a silk screen, but applied the Color Magnet with a brush and with a foam roller using a stencil over the fabric and one under the fabric (my new round placemat). Once it dried I used a light shade of the dyes for immersion. I added a “Fix Mix” to my dye rather than soaking it in soda solution because the Color Magnet would probably dissolve in the soak.

into the dye bath!

The results, as you can see above, were really cool! On the cottons the marks showed up as a darker value of the dye color. On silk, because of the way the dye molecules react with the fiber molecules, the color actually shifted to one closer to the color on cotton. Super interesting. This is definitely a product I will use in my work. It gives some of the effect that you would get by using discharge (but reversed) but without the nasty chemicals.

But how does it work? Anyone out there with more chemistry know-how able to explain it?

silk at the top and cotton on the bottom, both dyed with a light shade of Olive