Name: Marianne
Message: My mom made me a wedding dress of silk and cotton alencon lace.  She used cotton covered polyester thread.  We would like to dye the dress red so I can wear it as a formal gown using Procion dyes.  Do you think the thread will take any dye at all?  Will this be a disaster?  The cotton lace has all been hand applied to the silk.

Cotton-wrapped polyester thread will probably take the dye nicely. The polyester core, which will not take the dye, is covered by the dyeable cotton. Aa long as the thread was not waxed before use, it will probably dye well.

Both silk and cotton will take Procion MX dyes nicely. A potential problem will be if you use a pre-mixed dye color. Because silk and cotton are completely different, chemically, they react a little differently with each different dye color. This means that the color produced by a mixture of dyes can shift markedly in hue, on one fabric as compared to another. A red dye mixture will  come out a little more orange on the cotton and a little more blue on the silk, or the other way around, which can be a horrible shock. I would advise you against dyes labeled with such names as scarlet, chinese red, or fire engine red, as they contain mixtures of different dye colors.

Your best results by far will result from selecting  a single-hue, unmixed Procion MX type dye. The best choices for a red would be red MX-5B or red MX-8B. Red MX-5B is closer to a true red; though it is on the magenta side, it is not as bluish a red as red MX-8B. To see what names and catalog numbers this dye is sold under, by the various dye retailers, see my page of "Which Procion MX colors are pure, and which mixtures?".

If you know that the Alençon lace is made of cotton, it will probably dye well. Most lace of unknown fiber content is nylon. Nylon can be dyed with Procion MX dyes if you use an acid dyeing recipe, but not with soda ash. It requires vinegar or another acid. Cotton can be dyed only in the presence of a base such as soda ash, but not in the presence of an acid such as vinegar. Silk can be dyed either way.

You will have to do a lot of washing to get the excess unattached dye out after dyeing. Hot water is more effective than cold water at this. You can reduce the wear on the fabric by allowing the fabric to soak in the hot water for some time before completing the washing. A silk and cotton dress should be washable if the fabric was prewashed before it was sewn together, as my mother did when she made my wedding dress, but if the fabric and lace were not prewashed, the different fabrics may shrink to different extents, ruining the garment. If the fabric was not prewashed, you must avoid hot water for fear that it will shrink the lace a lot more than the rest of the dress. In that case,you may be able to get by with washing only in cool water; not all of the excess loose dye will be removed unless you wash it a great many times, so be careful about keeping the dress separate from everything else when it is washed or when it gets wet.

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