Name: judy
Message: Dear Paula,  Thank you for your amazing site. A friend of mine came for a dyeing day and brought a jar of Dharma's Electric Blue, PR23A.  I was wondering if there is a ProChemical equivalent, as I will be up at ProChem shortly. Actually, what I am looking for is that amazing in-your-face clear blue that shows up in Nancy Crow's quilts.  Any ideas?

There is no perfect equivalent for any of the proprietary mixtures that are prepared by any of the dye suppliers. The exact contents of Dharma's "Electric Blue" are a trade secret, unlikely to be perfectly identical to any mixture at another dye seller. The only dyes for which the identical dye is sold at other companies are the ones that are either pure, unmixed dyes, or the 'manufacturer's mixes' which are premixed by the dye manufacturers before they are sold to Dharma or Prochem. The unmixed, single hue colors are listed on the main chart on my page, "Which Procion MX colors are pure, and which mixtures?", at http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/FAQ/pureMXcolors.shtml . The manufacturer's mixtures have MX codes but are not in the top chart; many are listed in the second table, at the bottom of that page.

It looks to me as though a good substitute for that blue might be a mixture of equal parts of cerulean blue, blue MX-G, which ProChem calls intense blue, plus turquoise MX-G, which all suppliers of Procion MX type dyes sell under the same name. This is only a guess, however, judged merely from the color chip on their web page. You will have to use trial and error to determine whether this is a good color or not. Of course, ProChem has many premixed blues. Try looking at their color charts for a dye color that seems likely to be what you want. A lot of quilters like to use ProChem's Brightest Blue 404. I never have used it, since it's a mixture. You might want to try it, as well.

I strongly recommend that you buy some of each of the "pure" unmixed blues, including blue MX-R ("sky blue" at Dharma, "basic blue" at ProChem), blue MX-G ("cerulean blue" at Dharma, "intense blue" at ProChem), and turquoise MX-G ("Turquoise" at both suppliers), as well as one or more of the navies, such as blue MX-2G ("cobalt blue" at Dharma, "mixing blue" at ProChem). The pure unmixed hues give the brightest possible results when mixing colors, so it's good to have them all on hand and to learn their properties, if you haven't already. The brightest true blue in the Procion MX line may be that be obtained by mixing turquoise MX-G with a small amount of fuchsia (red MX-8B), though red MX-5B is a little better behaved with respect to making colored halos when the dye is applied directly to he fabric. 

Please let me know your thoughts about the colors that you end up buying!


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