Lots of new comers may wonder what is process of silk fabric dyeing? Some rough steps are as below.
First of all, we have QC team to select the most proper silk bases depending on different colors and production requirements. You know, different colors place different requirements on bases fabrics. Once selection is finished, bases are sent to dyeing workshop. Above can be considered the first step of dyeing process. Of course, more primary steps are involved, such as silkworm feeding, silk yarns spinning and cultivation as well reeling yarns from cocoons. However, these are areas happening prior to our business, so I am not going to talk much about it.
Secondly, for any new colors or custom colors, we usually make lab dips to make sure they work correctly before proceeding in bulk production. And the technicians write down recipes for future reference. So, this can be mostly considered as the second step of dyeing process. Lab dips are usually made in two or three shades and we send then whole set to our clients and kick off bulk production base on clients' selection.
Then, "formal" dyeing begins finally. The machines we use are "soaking" types, which means dye soak into silk fabrics from inside to outside. The advantage of the type is to minimize the friction between machine and fabric to reduce potential damage as much as possible. The color fasten process can be done in this machine.
As the next step, width fixing and drying will be done. Silk fabric shrink during last dyeing process and we need to fix the width here to make silk fabric standard and even. Part of color fasten process is finished here sometimes. After this process, fabrics will be sent for the first round of inspection, then packed. If clients need the silk fabrics to be softer, we have to apply some post treatments using other machines.
Lastly, we usually apply both inspection machine and experienced QC personnel for quality inspection. This is the last step. But, there are some other techniques which I didn't mention. For example, if you want to prevent silk crepe de chine fabric from shrinking after it is made into dresses, then, we will apply preshrinking treatments. And for instance, if you want silk satin to be less shiny or silk habotai fabric to be much softer, then, we will turn to sand washing process to achieve these goals.
