Name: Jean

Message: I didn't see an answer to my question. I have white cotton children's socks and fiber reactive dye from Dharma. I only need to dye 6 or 8 socks of each of 4 colors. The dharma site has instructions for dying huge amounts of fabric. I wonder how I would measure the dye and soda. Thanks for your time. I am making funny sock dolls with the socks. In the past I could buy the colored socks but I can't find them now.

How important is it to you to have each color be a smooth solid color? The easiest way to dye small quantities is by a method called low water immersion (see "How to Do Low Water Immersion Dyeing".) If you follow the LWI recipe, but stir your fabric, you will get some mottling of color; if you don't stir at all, you will get a lot of mottling. This is the easiest method, and often the prettiest, depending on what you want. 

If you want the colors to be perfectly smooth solid colors, then you will have to scale down from the high water ratio method of immersion dyeing, which is what Dharma calls the Tub (Washing Machine, Vat, Bucket) method. In this method, you use a relatively large amount of water, compared to the amount of fabric that you have, and you stir continually for about an hour.

Having decided which of these two techniques you wish to use, weigh your socks, while they are dry, on a kitchen scale or postal scale. You will use this weight to figure out how much to reduce each of the ingredients in the recipe.

For the low water immersion method, place your socks in a glass mason jar or another container (even a plastic ziplock freezer bag, if you don't want a lot of mottling); dissolve the required amount of dye in a cup or so of water, and pour it over the socks; then dissolve a teaspoon of soda ash in water and add it to the socks with the dye. You do not have to use salt, with this method. For a dark color, use about two teaspoons of Procion MX dye per pound of fabric; for a pastel color, use only about an eighth of a teaspoon of dye per pound of fabric, or less.

The high water ratio immersion method is fussier, and it's more trouble because it requires a lot of stirring. You'll need to divide all the amounts given in the standard one-pound recipe to get the same ratios for your smaller amount of fabric in the socks. For example, suppose that you have only one ounce, total, for each color of socks. Then you could simply divide the recipe that is designed for one pound by 16. (This is made easier by the fact that not only does one pound contain sixteen ounces, but also one gallon contains 16 cups, and one cup contains 16 tablespoons.) So, for one ounce dry weight of cotton fabric: instead of 3 gallons of water (48 cups), use 3 cups; instead of 1.5 cups of salt (24 tablespoons), use 3 tablespoons; and instead of one-third cup of soda ash (5 tablespoons plus one teaspoon), use one teaspoon. Follow the exact same recipe otherwise, first dissolving the dye in a little of the water, then filtering the dye through a nylon pantyhose stocking or a coffee filter, to remove undissolved red dots; then add the rest of the water and the salt; then stir your socks in this dyebath for fifteen or twenty minutes; then gradually add the soda ash and continue stirring for one-half to one hour further.

After you finish dyeing, then wash the socks once in cool water, or rinse them in the sink until the water runs clear, then wash two or three times in very hot water, to remove the unattached excess dye. If you're hand washing them, soak them in the hot water for maximum efficiency in removing the excess unattached dye.

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