Re: Can you die woolrich?
Matt,
No, the man-made portion of your Woolrich garment will NOT take a natural dye, however well prepped and mordanted the material is. This is actually a function of fiber structure and chemistry involved in natural dyes.
The question then becomes, what will the man-made portion do? One of two things can happen. Some natural dye processes actually go through a chemical reaction that strips prior color before dyeing--if you are using that type of dye process, the nylon portion will strip to white and will not take the new dye. The effect may be a salt and pepper sort of varigation, or visible straight lines, depending on how the nylon was used in the weaving process.
Depending on whether a polyester thread was used in sewing, you'll also have some challenges there. Even a good cotton or linen thread will take the dye differently than the wool coat, and you will see some color variation even in the best case scenario.
And you have an additional difficulty--natural dye processes run at anywhere from 120 degrees to boiling--and do so for several hours. This can cause unusal shrinkage in your garment, especially since you will need to lift and air the garment several times in the process to attempt to get even color.
If this is a coat you picked up off sutler row, for not much money, then maybe you want to risk the pitfalls of this process, for the sake of experience and an interesting piece. If this is a high quality, well made coat by , say, Fred Baker, Chris Daley, Corner Clothiers, or Dan Wambaugh, ---no, I would not risk a coat like that to a process that has the potential to make it unuseable.
Now, if you have a smaller, shorter, brother who needs a coat.........
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Re: Can you die woolrich?
I would recommend that you contact Ben Tart....he tends to be VERY knowledgeable on dying different materials
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Can you dye woolrich?
I was doing some reading of confederates taking captured federal great coats, and dyeing them brown or black. I have a federal great coat made of woolrich wool and am thinking of dyeing it to use for my sesh kit. My concern is if the 15% synthetic part of the woolrich wool will take to natural dies. If anyone has any information that could help me with this, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Matt Sternad
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