Hope this works- I have been referring to this site for years but this is my first attempt to post. I am a little stuck on a piece and not sure what is best to do next. I have a very large (about 7x8ft) silk noil weaving (16epi balanced weave), made of 13 long strips joined stitched together at the wefts. It is a weft ikat, all dyed with acid dyes in hot water with white vinegar. Unfortunately, the studio water is ice cold, so all yarns were rinsed as much as possible prior to weaving, but I've found out that there was indeed some fugutive dye in there. After reading up on wet finishing here, I really wanted to do it to help get these 13 strips to become one unified cloth. I did so with synthapol and hot water in the washing machine, agitating by hand. Structurally, the results are perfect- the joins are very smooth and any inconsistencies are barely visible now. However, the whole piece has a kind of dark cast over it. While agitating, the water did become darker and darker (some of the strips are black/purple). I panicked and resigned myself to the new, darker palette but then I got daring and rinsed again with synthrapol and hot water. After drying, it does seem that the colors are brighter than after the first rinse, but not as bright as when they were freshly woven. My question is- do you think I should keep rinsing with hot water and synthrapol until the water is completely clear? Will this fully remove the dark cast over the piece? I also saw the recommendation to use "color catchers" which I will pick up today in case I do go for another rinse. It seems that the hand of the cloth did not change much from one rinse to the next, and this will be a wall piece, so I'm not overly concerned if it gets a little stiff but I am terrified in general of ruining months of work. Thank you so much for reading and for any advice you may have! It is greatly appreciated. :)
