I've had a hard time finding the exact color of non stretch denim that I wanted for some
Lander pants, so I decided to give fabric dying a go. I went with
RIT because it was easy to find and inexpensive. Honestly I had no idea or confidence in how this was going to go, so I didn't want to invest too much. For fabric, I went with my tried and true
bull denim in natural. White would work as well, but since I knew that I wanted a darker color in the end, I figured the natural was more likely to get me there.
I did two separate dye batches. I scoured the RIT website which has a great section on color formulas and went with
potter's clay as my first batch.
I bought the three colors it asked for - tangerine, apple green, and scarlet and got to work.
Essentially I just followed the directions on the bottle and on the website. I added salt which was recommended and used this paper towel to test the color before adding my fabric. One thing that made a more successful product this time (compared to past attempts) was getting a large enough bucket so there was a lot of movement, and also stirring a lot for the first 10 minutes.
I let it soak for a few hours with occasional stirring because I knew that I wanted a deep color.
The end result is this beautiful deep rust color that I love so much. I would say that it is a little more red than the intended hue, but it is still such a gorgeous color that I can't be upset.
Next up, I wanted a true camel brown. It's my favorite color to wear with a simple black turtleneck in the fall so I knew I needed to make it. I looked again at the RIT color formulas and landed on
caramel.
I bought the golden yellow and cocoa brown dyes and used the same natural colored bull denim.
I used the same process as before and ended up with a perfect medium camel color.
All in all a big success. The only change I might make next time is to add a small amount of black to my dye to get a darker hue.
I can't wait to make up a couple of
Lander pants with these for the fall and winter which is fast approaching.
