Is Procion MX dye going to be enough to penetrate sheets with a washing machine dye process?

Name: John

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Country or region: USA

Message: Hello and thank you so much for this page.
I have some egg shell colored white 1000 count sheets and we want to dye them.
Is Procion MX dye going to be enough to penetrate the sheets fabric with a washing machine dye process?

Thanks again for the web page!

Sheets are very dyeable, with a few caveats. The high thread count will not be a problem, and often the only way to get the color you want is by dyeing the sheets yourself.

First, there are some finishes, such as the formaldehyde used on 100% cotton sheets to make them less wrinkleable. (Doesn't it seem strange, to find that cotton sheets, which are heavily promoted as being "natural", are almost invariably coated with formaldehyde-containing resins?) These surface finishes can interfere with the access of the dye to the cellulose fiber. You will want to wash your sheets first in VERY hot water to remove as much as possible of any surface finishes. Not all will be removed, but my experience is that the overall results are usually just fine, anyway. Note that if you have not yet purchased your sheets, you should avoid any with claims of wrinkle resistance, no-iron, and the like, as sheets with those claims will have even more of the resin coatings than sheets that lack the claims on their packaging. They also tend to be less soft.

Check your washer to see if the "hot" setting allows cold water to be added in as the water fills; if so, turn off the cold water faucet, temporarily, as you fill the washer. Make sure your water heater is set to produce water that is 140°F, rather than being dialed down to 120° or even lower to prevent scald burns at the sinks. (Put warning notices next to the sinks while the water heater is turned up, if you think it's necessary.) Use Synthrapol or any other clothes washing detergent, usually no more than half the amount recommended on the label for most laundry detergents (people generally use too much), and add some extra soda ash (a.k.a. washing soda or sodium carbonate), as well, for extra cleaning powder without extra bubbles.

When you pre-wash your sheets, watch to see if they become twisted up by the agitator. If they do, you may need to untwist them repeatedly during the dyeing process. Twisted-up sheets cannot dye evenly; the regions inside the twists will receive less dye and end up a lighter color. Now, obviously a tiny pair of disposable latex gloves is not going to be completely adequate for reaching into a machine full of dye; prepare by buying yourself some ordinary sturdy rubber dishwashing gloves, or even the long-armed rubber gloves sold by Dharma Trading Company and PRO Chemical and Dye.

If your sheets contain any polyester content, for example, if they are 50% cotton and 50% polyester, only those fibers that are natural will take the dye. You can't dye polyester without boiling it (using a special polyester dye), which would be terribly impractical for an item as large as a sheet. Even the 50% poly sheets can dye very well if one allows for the paler color that will result from dyeing only half the fibers. Surprisingly, however, even 100% cotton sheets have stitching at the seems which is sewn with polyester thread. The polyester thread will remain the original color after you dye the sheets. This is not usually much of a problem, however.

Procion MX fiber reactive dye is your best choice for dyeing your sheets, whether they are made of cotton, linen, rayon, bamboo rayon, or modal rayon. It performs many times better than all-purpose dye. You will want to weigh your sheets while they are still dry in order to calculate how much dye you will need. For a dark color, you will need far more dye powder than for a light color. See my page, "How much Procion MX dye should I use?", for more information and advice on that question. You can mix different colors to get just the right shade, if none of the hundred different colors of Procion MX dyes available at the better dye mail-order retailers is quite right for your tastes. Note that the eggshell color of your sheets will cause any color of dye to come out a little bit yellower than you would get if you had pure white sheets. The results will be fine, but a blue might be a touch greener, or a red a touch oranger, so take that into account when choosing your colors.

You will also need perhaps twenty cups of non-iodized salt (table salt or pickling salt from the grocery store are ideal; if you use kosher salt, you will need to measure out more cups to get the same weight of salt, and how much you need will depend on what brand of kosher salt you buy, since one brand has crystals that occupy far more space, per gram of salt, then another does). See my page about salt for more details.

The third requirement is for sodium carbonate, also known as soda ash or washing soda, which provides the high pH required for the cotton (or other natural fiber) to react with the dye. You can order this with your dyes, or buy it at a hardware store or swimming pool supply store. See my page entitled, "What is soda ash, and what's it for in dyeing?".

Some dye recipes also call for a small amount of Calsolene oil, a wetting agent that helps dye to penetrate. I've done well in dyeing sheets without Calsolene, but it's a good thing to try it if you are concerned about very level (smoothly solid-colored) dyeing.

Find a good recipe for washing machine dyeing with Procion MX dyes. There are links to good recipes on my page "How can I dye clothing or fabric in the washing machine?". Top-loading washers are easier to dye in, but it is possible to use a front-loading washer for dyeing, usually with good results.

After you dye the sheets, having reset the machine repeatedly to get a good long time for the dye to penetrate and bond with the fabric (I always allow a full hour), you should wash the excess dye out, first with one washing of cool water, to get out the bulk of the excess dye, as well as the salt and the soda ash; then wash in hot water (again, this should be 140°F or higher) to remove the last of the unattached excess dye. This usually takes two full cycles through the washer, with hot water. First peer inside your washer and use a rag to wipe down any spots of dye that happened to splatter above the water line of the washing machine load. There should be no dye remaining in the machine when you are done washing out your sheets, but some dyers like to make sure by running a load of bleach, with the maximum load size, with towels or something, after they've completed the sheet washing-out. You can feel safe in machine drying your freshly dyed sheets, after you've completed the washing out steps.

I have to point out to you that there is often a bit of a scam involved in 1000-thread-count sheets, though it won't affect your dyeing at all. It's typically the case that a sheet labeled with a high thread count actually has a far lower thread count. The thread count is supposed to be the sum of how many threads are woven in one inch in the weft direction, plus how many threads are woven in the warp direction, so you might be expected about 500 threads per inch in reality (or possibly 300 one way and 700 the other). However, if you get a linen counter, which is a magnifier attached to a square of the correct dimensions, and count for yourself, you will commonly see a far lower count, perhaps 170 by 170. Manufacturers who know how much we love the idea of high thread-count sheets may fraudulently inflate their numbers by counting a thread as two or threads if it is composed of two or three finer threads twisted together, although that's a different thing than high thread count. See, for example, this article by Lauren Collins in the New Yorker magazine, "Splitting Threads", from their January 28, 2008 issue. Instead of believing the thread count claims made by a manufacturer, it is important to buy sheets by feel, based on whether they feel as soft and luxurious as you expect them to.

Good luck in dyeing your sheets. It's very satisfying to have the color you really want for your sheets, instead of one of the limited number of colors that the fashion industry has decreed will be available for sale this year. Don't neglect to consider the low water immersion process for your sheets, if you'd like a combination of colors in a very subtle pattern. Low water immersion dyeing is even easier than the washing machine method outlined above.

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Posted: Saturday - January 01, 2011 at 09:23 AM

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Is Procion MX dye going to be enough to penetrate sheets with a washing machine dye process?

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