How much soda ash do you add to one gallon of the dye, if you are using that method?

Name: Sarah

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Message: How much soda ash do you add to one gallon of the dye, if you are using that method?

If you are tie-dyeing, and adding the soda ash powder directly to the Procion MX fiber reactive dye mixtures, instead of using a soda ash pre-soak for your fabric, then you can add one teaspoon (5 ml) of soda ash to each 8-ounce (250 ml) bottle of dye. That is the same amount as 16 teaspoons of soda ash per gallon of dye mixture, or one-third of a cup of soda ash. Shake or stir until the powder has dissolved, and apply it to your fabric right away.

You can see a recipe for activated Procion MX dye mixtures on my page, "Sodium alginate, Superclear, and other dye thickeners".

Don't mix in the soda ash until you are about to apply the dye! The Procion MX dye starts reacting right away, as soon as you have added the soda ash. It will become noticeably weaker in less than an hour. It can stay good for over a week without the soda ash.

(Also do not do this if you are not using a fiber reactive dye, such as Procion MX or Vinyl Sulfone dyes. Soda ash does not work with all-purpose dye, such as Rit dye.)

If you are not tie-dyeing, but instead immersion dyeing a small amount of fabric to a single solid color in a bucket of water, the recipe is quite different. For one gallon of water, to dye up to two-thirds of a pound of fabric, you would use one tablespoon of Procion MX dye, one cup of non-iodized salt, and eight teaspoons of soda ash.

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Posted: Monday - July 04, 2011 at 03:51 PM

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How much soda ash do you add to one gallon of the dye, if you are using that method?

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