Name: Valerie
Message: I'm in Nor California and I am a costumer. I have always found materials in the colors that I've needed that are period appropriate, until now. I picked up a great deal on some apricot colored cotton. The problem is that the color is a pastel shade. I can't use it as is. The colors that I would like to use would be in the rust-burgandy-red range. My question is this. What color fiber reactive dye do I need to purchase and use to make this color usable for me?

Apricot, being pale, will have only a relatively slight effect on the color you make. It would interfere with blue or yellow, but can be pretty much ignored in making a deep or intense reddish color such as rust, burgundy, or red. Therefore, I recommend that you just pick your favorite mixed colors of Procion MX type dye from one of the companies listed on my Sources for Supplies page. Both Dharma Trading Company and Rupert, Gibbon, and Spider sell many different pre-mixed colors of fiber reactive dye and are located in California, but Rupert Gibbon and Spider supplies excellent prices only for bulk orders of eight ounces or more per color; Dharma Trading Company sells even two-ounce jars at relatively good prices.

If you wish to dye using pure, unmixed colors, you would use a magenta combined with a little yellow, to get red.