Name: Kristy
Message: Hi Paula,
I enjoy your site very much! I am planning a tye dye project in which I am using one color. I'd like to have the color cover most of the shirt, except for the places that have been rubberbanded. I know I could apply the dye with a squirt bottle, but would I also achieve the effect I want by first tying and soaking the shirt in sida ash, and then just simply immersing the shirt in a bucket of the dye? I plan to use a a procion dye from Dharma.

Yes, that will work just fine. In fact, this is the original form of tie-dyeing. It is traditional to do this sort of tie-dyeing a little differently, though, without using the soda ash as a presoak, but instead adding the soda ash after the dye has had a chance to soak into the fiber. First add water (and, if needed, water softener) to a bucket, then add salt (which is not used in direct application of dye), then the fabric, then soda ash. Here's a link to a good recipe from PRO Chemical & Dye.

So if this is possible, how much dye to water should I use? How long would the shirt soak? Would the rubberbanded areas effectively stay white over a long soak in dye?

Larger amounts of water, with lots of stirring, result in smoother coloring on the solid-color background. Smaller amounts result in uneven coloring. If you don't really care either way, the smaller volume is easier.

If your kitchen is hot, you don't need to leave the dye to react as long as you would if it is only 70 degrees F. ProChem's recipe is for only 60 to 90 minutes. Longer time will do no harm, though, and in some cases may give brighter or more intense colors.

Another question...have you ever tye dyed with the low water immersion method? It might be neat to see the different color gradiations with tye dye patterns. Any tips there?

Yes, I often fold a garment as for tie-dyeing, then jam it tightly into a bucket so that the folds are more or less maintained, without any tying at all, for an effect that is more subtle than tie-dyeing but still somewhat controlled, or I tie and then jam the garment into the bucket. It's so easy! Just follow the LWI recipe, with or without salt as you prefer, using a tied garment. Always add the soda ash a little while after adding the dye, for more beautiful color gradations than you can get by pre-soaking in soda ash. Add soda ash first for less of the interesting blending of different colors.

If you want different shades of just one color, in low water immersion dyeing, you must pretty much stick to the pure, unmixed colors (see "Which Procion MX dyes are pure, and which are mixtures?"). Premixed colors of dye tend to spread out and separate into different colors in LWI. The results are usually pretty wonderful! It is amazing what you can get by using a black or grey mixed dye for LWI dyeing.

(Please help support this web site. Thank you.)