Name: Rich
Message: I have been tie-dying for years and have always used 100% cotton.  I have done sets of sheets that have come out spectacular and they were the Jersey type sheets.  Recently, I went to get those type of sheets and found that they were made of 100% Modal, a fiber from a beech tree.  How does this work with tie-dying?  If it doesn't it what do you recomend?

Use the same fiber reactive dyes and recipes that you use for cotton. Modal® will probably dye well, since it is a cellulose fiber; it is said to be a form of rayon that is less hydrophilic than cotton. The Lenzing company, which makes Modal®, says that it can be dyed like cotton. This means that it is like viscose rayon, rather than acetate rayon, which is chemically altered and cannot be dyed with cotton dyes. Modal's lower hydrophilicity may imply that it is less easily wetted than standard viscose rayon, so you might want to pre-wet it with water containing a small amount of Synthrapol, or add a few drops of Synthrapol to your soda ash pre-soak.

Rayon tends to dye more brightly than cotton, because the cellulose is more processed and therefore more easily accessed by the dye molecules. It is even more important with Modal® and other forms of rayon than with cotton to avoid all-purpose dye because the fragility of the fiber cannot withstand the heat required for best results with all-purpose dye. Expect the fiber to be extremely weak when wet. Never wash it with anything made of a heavier fabric.

The customer reviews I saw for sheets made of Modal® did not seem very favorable. Apparently it is nice and soft, but too thin to be durable, and inclined to form pills. Perhaps the more expensive modal sheets would be better than the inexpensive ones; certainly cheaper cotton jersey is much more subject to pilling than expensive cotton jersey. If you'd rather stick with cotton jersey sheets, rather than switching to Modal, they are certainly still available at other retailers, such as Lands' End.

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