August 27, 2012

Dyeing with Dylon



Waasssaaaaaaaa----

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----aaaaaaaaaaaaaappppp.








So, my college pants right, they've become terribly faded after only a year. At RM75 for a new one, I'd rather find an alternative to overcome the problem. In fact there's only one alternative: Dyeing.


So I came across this fabric dye from Dylon:

 small isnt it?


and decided to give it a try. The result........






Not bad eh? If you can see the difference. Trust me its there but maybe the camera doesnt really pick it up that clearly.



So, how do we go about dyeing?

These instructions only apply to Dylon Multi Purpose Dye, as what I have used and as shown above. Dylon has other types of dyes and have different methods which you can find at http://www.dylon.co.uk/products.php.


1. Wash clothing item thoroughly and leave it damp.

2. Get a rust-proof, metal container and fill with enough water to cover your item. Make sure its big enough for easy movement, like say, stirring. Large items like my pants required a seriously huge pot.

3. For each tin of dye, boil 500ml of water and add the dye. Stir well. ATTENTION: Pour the powder VERY SLOWLY. Pouring it too fast will cause the water to suddenly and intensely bubble up. In fact pouring it slowly will still cause some reaction. It's best your pot be larger to prevent the water from spilling over as it bubbles.

4. Now heat up your first container of water. Add 30g of salt for each tin you use. Then add your dye mixture which you boiled earlier. For my pants, I used 1.5 tins of dye and 50g of salt. Keep an eye on your container while you're heating it up. I left it on max flame for a while and suddenly the whole pot bubbled and spilled over.

FYI: The salt lets your item absorb the dye better

5. Now comes the hard part. Let your container of dye reach simmering (aka just below boiling) point and put in your item. Stir it, toss it,  for 20 minutes. Seeing how big my pants and pot were, it was really hot and difficult.

6. Rinse your item until the water is clear. Admittedly, I didnt rinse it THAT thoroughly.  Dry item away from direct heat and sunlight.


Now, some important things to take note of:

The dye will not work on synthetic materials except nylon.

The dye will come off in the wash so be sure to wash dyed clothes separately and turned inside out.

Wear gloves. Dye will stay permanently on skin if not washed off immediately.

It's advised to wear older clothes or clothes with the same colour as the dye just incase it splashes onto you.

Patterns will not be entirely covered, but the colour may change.

Colour mixing rules apply, e.g blue dye + red shirt = purple result

One little tin of this dye is good for 250g of clothing. A shirt perhaps.

Clothes with special finishes e.g 'dry clean only' will not be dyed.



Special Instructions for Wool and silk:

Follow steps for 1 to 4 above.

5. Put in clean, damp, unfolded article. Bring slowly to a simmer and reduce heat at once. Stir gently for 10 minutes.

6. Remove article from dye and allow to cool before rinsing in lukewarm water, until water runs clear.


Happy dyeing~ :)

August 21, 2012

Vision. Purpose. Blue.

YOSH!

I'm now on day 3 of my 2 week college break, at home, chomping on a watermelon slice. Today I shall present to you a short story of what happened last Thursday.


******

You most probably have never heard of the Blue Jackets; Malaysia's (I should say) premier supercar club where owners of any high performance ride for long drives, gatherings, events and such. In recent months they've been making a name for themselves by organising charity events, particularly for children. And as time passes, their membership (or as they call it brotherhood) is only growing bigger and bigger, and so is the support for them.

This year, my brother and I have followed them on a few of their activities such as:




Their drive to Phuket, Thailand (well not all the way to Thailand, just their starting point at Solaris Dutamas in Mont Kiara)


Their drag race event at Sepang



Project Mata Hati for blind children at Setapak


So then, last Thursday. They organised a charity buka puasa dinner for about... lol I-dont-know-how-many children at I-City Shah Alam. I wasnt able to join them there so the next best thing would be to go to their starting place at 10 Boulevard in Damansara. Now, I havent ventured to many parts of KL on my own yet so this being  a first, I was apprehensive. You know, one-wrong-turn-and-you're-so-screwed. So I studied Google Maps like it was an exam subject (speaking of which...) but luckily it was very straightforward from college.

So, after my first exam I stayed back for a while, had lunch, derped around a little and then made my way to 10-B'vard. About halfway there I saw the big, dark, scary clouds rolling in and I thought to myself,

"Vhat are you doing??????? You have another exam tomorrow and you're going somewhere you've never been before, alone, and with a storm coming!! You krazy!!@!!"


Once there I just lingered around as one by one Ferraris Lambos and Porsches started rolling in (together with the rain). While they waited some guys from Motorsports Playground (they do customawesome paint and wraps for cars) started plastering these on the cars:



Your guess is as good as mine that the Blue Jackets are really putting their charity works into high gear.


 Eventually I had to leave earlier before them (I intended to follow behind them, although an old Datsun probably wont keep up with them anyway) because it was nearing peak-hour traffic time and it was raining so I didnt want to get caught in a 2-hour crawl or anything like that.

That's when I thought would be the perfect time to try out Nokia Maps navigation system. Glad I am to report it worked perfectly AND, it's also free!* With newfound confidence in self-travelling thanks to Nokia Maps, that's one less deterrent to joining any Blue Jackets events in the future. To find out more and keep track of their activities, follow the Blue Jackets at https://www.facebook.com/bluejacketssociety. And now I leave you with this simple fan 'art' created by yours truly~


*To make sure your Nokia Maps navigation doesnt cost you anything you first have to set the program into Offline mode which prevents any large amounts of data being transferred. You wont get the full functionality of Nokia Maps in offline mode but just to get you from point A to point B, it works.