AKICODW/LJ/FB: dying fabric in the washing machine

[firecat]

I have four organic cotton king-sized sheets in "ivory" and I want to dye them a solid color using the washing machine. I don't feel strongly that the dye job should be perfect but I'd rather avoid the sheets bleeding out over other stuff in the wash later on. I've done a bunch of research on this on DharmaTraders.com and I gather I have two options:

•"iDye" prepackaged dye + fixative
•Procion dye + salt + soda ash

DharmaTraders says "iDye" is not very color-fast. We wash all our linens together on hot, so I figured it might not be a good option.

-->Have you used "iDye" and would you concur with this opinion?

DharmaTraders also recommends adding a number of extra ingredients to the Procion recipe in order to get a more uniform, more intense, and/or more lasting color. The ingredients are:
•urea for brightening and fixing the color
•special detergent for pre- and post-washing
•calsolene oil for more uniform color

They also recommend that you premix the dye and then pour it through a cloth filter.

The urea, detergent, and oil come in large packages compared to the amount I would use for this one project, and I'm not planning to make this a regular hobby, and I don't want to have extra chemicals lying around forever. So I'm wondering how important they are. Do you use them? Why or why not?

Comments

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I've never even heard of this iDye business before, but I have a reasonable amount of experience with Procion dyes. They have been known to bleed in cases where I leave them in the machine wet too long, but not after the first wash or two otherwise. Rit Color Remover generally gets rid of the bled color, though it has sometimes had a strange effect on the original color too.

I don't use calsolene oil, never have, don't think my dyeing buddies have.

We have tried the carcinogenic detergent and found a recent wash and a soak in the hot soda ash solution seems just as good. Actually, the hot soda ash (aka washing soda) solution is great for removing stains, especially the yellowish discoloration that can come to t-shirts and linens after much use.

I do use urea, and have never tried Procion dyeing without it. It's cheap, especially if you buy locally at an art supply store instead of paying to ship it, and extra seems like it should be Freecyclable. (I guess a person could theoretically use it as a nitrogen-only plant fertilizer if growing N-lovers like tomatoes or corn, but I haven't tried that.)

Oh, and I've never filtered the dye and never had trouble with spotting. That kind of thing might depend on the color; I've used a good variety but not all of them.