I am lucky enough to live close enough to a local fabric and art supplies store. I found this remnant of 100% linen in a neutral-enough color that I thought would be suitable for dyeing. After doing a little research, I have found that the most recommended brand is Procion MX.
The instructions, however, are for 1 pounds worth of fabric (roughly three t-shirts), so I am going to calculate the rough weight of this fabric by using the weight of the fabric which is between 3.7 oz/yd$^2$ (the average weight of a handkerchief linen) to 4.86 oz/yd$^2$ (which is the weight of the 100% linen that I think I purchased at the fabric store, I don’t know exactly). By dividing by 16 and rounding to the fourth decimal place,
\[\frac{3.7oz}{yd^2}*\frac{1lb}{16oz}= \frac{.2313lb}{yd^2}\] \[\frac{4.86oz}{yd^2}*\frac{1lb}{16oz} = \frac{.3038lb}{yd^2}\]Given that I have a yard and a quarter’s worth, that means the weight is anywhere from .289lb - .380lb. I’m going to use 1 gallon of warm water then, instead of 3, since I have roughly 1/3lb of fabric. This makes sense considering that I think I can make one top from this fabric, not three t-shirts worth. The fabric needs to be able to “move freely in the dye bath”.
For a medium shade, I need 1/3 tbsp of dye, 1/2 cups of salt, 1/12 cup of soda ash (so 4 tsp worth).
It’s not worth buying a whole thing of soda ash, and since it’s just sodium carbonate (Na$_{2}$CO$_3$), I’m going to take some baking soda, sodium bicarbonate(NaCO$_3$), and heat it so the water and carbon dioxide come off. This means I will bake it in the oven till it’s about 2/3rds of its original weight, thus giving us an easy ratio to measure out for how much baking soda I will need (6 tsps).
You can’t “overcook” the soda, but all of the water does need to come out. So, my final recipe is going to look like this:
Sodium Carbonate Recipe 6 tsps of baking soda
- Preheat oven to $400^{\circ}F$
- Baking sheet with foil, and spread baking soda in an even layer in the oven
- Bake for about 15-30 minutes
- Take out, and store in airtight container (make sure to wear plastic gloves in order to protect yourself from this alkaline powder!!)
However, my results did not come out quite the way I expected. I wasn’t sure if it was soda ash at the end, the next time I will prepare some sort of pH testing kit so I can make sure that what I’ve produced is soda ash. So, long story short, I purchased some soda ash at the same local arts place that I got the Procion MX Dye from.
Finally, now that we have soda ash, salt, and water all figured out, we can begin the dyeing process. On the first time, I noticed that the dye seemed a little patchy. Here’s how it looked:
I am also wearing the muslin, with an unfinished hem, underneath the draped linen fabric so I could see if I would like this shirt pattern for this fabric, which, I do!
As a side note: I do know that I need to lengthen the gathered bottom portion of the shirt by about two inches or so. I’m a relatively tall person so usually, I need to lengthen the bodice portion of dresses and tops. This is why it’s good to make a muslin!
In order to fix the unevenness, I re-dyed the fabric after giving it a good laundering (to make sure that the fabric couldn’t adhere to the dye because of some stain or another). Then, assembled and finished the shirt using this re-dyed linen.
Can’t wait to wear it next summer!