Name: Laura

Message: I'd like to try out spray dyeing with Procion dyes and a few cotton pieces. Do I need to do anything different when preparing my solutions to go in the spray bottles? What about soda ash and salt—do I include them? Thanks!

You must use soda ash in order to fix the Procion dye to the cotton fiber. The easiest way to use the soda ash is to presoak your shirts in a mixture of one cup of soda ash in a gallon of water, then squeeze out the extra water. You can either spray your Procion MX dyes on the shirt while it is still wet with the soda ash mixture, or you can line-dry the soda ash on the shirts and then spray the dye onto them. 

You don't need to add salt when doing direct dye application. I recommend that you follow this tie-dyeing recipe for spraying with dye. Any good tie-dyeing recipe will work, as long as you omit any thickener (some people prefer to add a thickener to their dyes for tie-dyeing).

Salt is required only when you dye with a large amount of water, the method used to obtain a single smooth solid color. It helps to drive the dye out of the water onto the fabric. There is no need for salt if you are using only a small amount of water, as in tie-dyeing, especially since you are applying the dye directly to the fiber. If you add salt to the dye concentrates you mix up for tie-dyeing, it may cause the dye to come out of solution and collect at the bottom of the dye bottle, instead of staying dissolved for easy application. If you are currently adding salt to your dyes for tie-dyeing, it's not necessary, but you can continue to use your usual tie-dyeing recipe, placing the dyes in spray bottles instead of the usual plastic squeeze bottles with yorker tips.

Do not spray with dye indoors. The spray's many fine droplets containing dye can dry up as they float through the air, returning to powdered form. You don't want dye powder floating loose in the air in your house. Dye powder floating in the air can make a real mess, causing permanent stains on furnishings. It's also best to carefully avoiding breathing any powdered chemicals, such as dyes. If you breathe in dye powder, you may develop a allergy to it, which would mean that you'd have to quit using it for good. It's a good idea to do any spraying of dye either outdoors or in a spraying booth, and to wear a well-fitting dust mask or respirator when you do it, in case the breeze blows the dye back in your face as you spray it. 

Here's a link to a page showing one project I did by spraying Procion MX dyes:
Spray dyeing Leaf silhouettes
I spread the soda-ash-soaked shirt out flat, arranged some fresh-picked leaves over it, sprayed with one color of dye, removed the leaves and arranged fresh leaves in different places, then sprayed with another color. The dye did not seep through to the back, so I flipped the shirt over to repeat the process.

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