Well, sometimes I just get so frustrated.
I really needed some new pants that were a bit larger, so when I got a good offer for some blue jean style yoga pants, complete with pockets, I grabbed two pairs. They arrived, they fit, they're nice and stretchy and they have a drawstring waist so they won't stop fitting if I lose some weight. But they bleed horribly in the wash, which I had the sense to find out by washing them separately and using one of those Shout color catchers. The strange thing is, the color they bleed isn't blue; it's purple. And every time I was them, they seem a little more purple.
Now, I've tried to color set indigo dye (which is what they normally use for blue jeans) before, and I've never found a way to do it. The only products I've ever seen that are supposed to be able to set it require hot water, which makes the blue jeans shrink. But these pants obviously weren't dyed with indigo; they wouldn't be going all purple if they were. So I thought I'd try the recipe that generally works on T-shirts:
1 - 2 q. water
1/2 c. white vinegar
~ 1 T. Epsom salts
As you can see, this doesn't actually involve very exact measurements.
So, yesterday I put 2 gallons of water in a bucket, added a quart of vinegar and 4 tablespoons of Epsom salts, stirred thoroughly, and put the pants in. Made sure they were totally submerged, no bubbles (Jasmine was superintending with great interest until she saw me violently "drowning" the pants; then she decided it was time for a nap), and let them sit for half an hour. Then I put them in the washer and ran them through, to get rid of any loose dye that was remaining. And then I laundered them again, with another color catcher sheet. They're still bleeding purple. It's fading, slowly, with every wash, but they're still bleeding which means I can't wash them in the same load with anything else!
I wonder what would happen if I kept the water at 2 gallons and doubled the vinegar and Epsom salts. I really hate having to waste so much water doing separate loads. Has anyone else come up with a decent solution to this problem? {Oh,
! I was re-reading what I just wrote and suddenly realized that while I multiplied the water and vinegar by 8 I only multiplied the Epsom salts by 4. Bleep, bleep, BLEEP! I'm going to have to do this all over again, and this time I will make the solution stronger as well as getting the math right. I'll post whether it works or not.)
Margret
I really needed some new pants that were a bit larger, so when I got a good offer for some blue jean style yoga pants, complete with pockets, I grabbed two pairs. They arrived, they fit, they're nice and stretchy and they have a drawstring waist so they won't stop fitting if I lose some weight. But they bleed horribly in the wash, which I had the sense to find out by washing them separately and using one of those Shout color catchers. The strange thing is, the color they bleed isn't blue; it's purple. And every time I was them, they seem a little more purple.
Now, I've tried to color set indigo dye (which is what they normally use for blue jeans) before, and I've never found a way to do it. The only products I've ever seen that are supposed to be able to set it require hot water, which makes the blue jeans shrink. But these pants obviously weren't dyed with indigo; they wouldn't be going all purple if they were. So I thought I'd try the recipe that generally works on T-shirts:
1 - 2 q. water
1/2 c. white vinegar
~ 1 T. Epsom salts
As you can see, this doesn't actually involve very exact measurements.
So, yesterday I put 2 gallons of water in a bucket, added a quart of vinegar and 4 tablespoons of Epsom salts, stirred thoroughly, and put the pants in. Made sure they were totally submerged, no bubbles (Jasmine was superintending with great interest until she saw me violently "drowning" the pants; then she decided it was time for a nap), and let them sit for half an hour. Then I put them in the washer and ran them through, to get rid of any loose dye that was remaining. And then I laundered them again, with another color catcher sheet. They're still bleeding purple. It's fading, slowly, with every wash, but they're still bleeding which means I can't wash them in the same load with anything else!
I wonder what would happen if I kept the water at 2 gallons and doubled the vinegar and Epsom salts. I really hate having to waste so much water doing separate loads. Has anyone else come up with a decent solution to this problem? {Oh,
Margret
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