If I add the soda ash to the dye bottles just before the children use it, how much soda ash should I use?

Name: Kathy

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Country or region: Dallas, TX

Message: I am doing a (large) group tie dye project and thanks to your site I have assembled what I hope to be all the necessary supplies. We will be tie dying close to 600 children's t-shirts in the school colors of bright green and golden yellow using ProcionMX dyes. They will be done in art class with approximately 20-25 children's shirts dyed at a time. I am weighing two options for getting the soda ash onto the shirts:

1) having the children tie their designs and then soaking for a few minutes (5 to 10) in large buckets of water and soda ash. Then an adult can wring the shirts out before the Dye is applied.

OR
2) mixing the soda ash into the squeeze bottles of dye. (I cannot seem to find the ratio on your site but I know this can be done for painting techniques.)
I do not want to have the children tie shirts soaked in soda ask and honestly mixing soda ash into the dye squeeze bottles would be easier (a la Tulip kits). Do you have any hints about the ratio of soda ash to dye & water if I mix it all together. (We do not need to store the dye for an extended period of time and will use the mixed bottles within the school day.)

THANKS!!!

Both of the methods you're considering will work fine. I've always used the first one, but the second one is a perfectly good choice.

I agree with you about not letting the children tie the shirts after they have been soaked in soda ash. I don't even do that myself, since the soda ash is so irritating to the skin that gloves MUST be worn, but wearing gloves is difficult while tying. The fingers of the gloves tend to get caught in the rubber bands or artificial sinew while you are tying. It's better to use plain water to dampen the shirts, if you want the moisture's help in making crisp bindings, or skip the water altogether, and then soak the tied garments in the soda ash.

The biggest drawback to mixing the soda ash directly with the dye is that it may not stay good for more than an hour after you do. When you add the soda ash to the dye mixtures, the dye begins immediately to react with the water. This will be fine if you mix up a different set of dye bottles for each class period, and add the soda ash only after class has started, perhaps while the children are tying their shirts. Just don't try adding the soda ash to all of the dye dye bottles in the morning, hours in advance. If you do, the classes that meet later in the day will have very pale results.

There's a recipe for how much soda ash to use on my page about dye thickeners. If each of your dye bottles contains 16 ounces of dye (half a liter), then the amount of soda ash to add is one teaspoon (5 milliliters). For a one-cup (8 ounce) bottle of dye, add half a teaspoon of soda ash. (Slightly too much or too little will be fine.) Be sure to get all the dye, urea, and water softener (if needed) mixed together well in advance, either in the morning or one or two days in advance, so that the only thing you will need to add in class will be the soda ash itself. (Dye thickener is entirely optional, so you don't have to bother with it.) Mixing up the dye itself takes too long for that to be left until classes begin.

If you're not sure how much dye you'll need, see "How much Procion MX dye should I use?".

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Posted: Monday - October 24, 2011 at 08:00 AM

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If I add the soda ash to the dye bottles just before the children use it, how much soda ash should I use?

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