How To Dye Slipcovers & Fabrics The Right Way: Simple Yet Careful Steps Produce A Perfect Job

Furniture,Soft Home | July 8, 20102 Comments

How To Dye Slipcovers & Fabrics The Right Way: Simple Yet Careful Steps Produce A Perfect Job

A while back, I wrote a post showing off the dying expertise of textile artist, Candy Glendening. She turned her Ektorp (IKEA) chaise from blah to beautiful by dyeing the slipcover a beautiful green with a water-colored look. I received a request from a reader asking what color she used. Turns out, it was her own special mix. I asked Candy give us her secret ingredients and instructions so we can reproduce the lovely effect. First, a note about Candy. She dyes her own fabrics (I’m truly amazed at what she can do), and uses them to create beautiful quilts, scarves, and bags – just to name a few. You can check out her shop here. Take it away Candy!

The cotton slipcover I dyed was from IKEA. I dyed it using low water immersion dyeing. That gives the fabric the visual water color texture and uses a minimum amount of liquid to suspend the dye. Washing machine dyeing will achieve a solid color. The low water method may seem difficult, but it’s not. It just takes time and careful measuring. The four basic steps are: preparing the slipcover, preparing the dye, dyeing and washout. If you’re a newbie to dyeing, I recommend you use a pre-mixed dye. Both major dye houses (listed below) have many premixed colors, which are a lot easier to use because you don’t have to figure out proportions. I mix my own because I want an exact color. Here we go!

Dyeing fabric is easy, achieving the exact color you want is not. If you’re going to be upset if the color isn’t just what you wanted, test first!

Ingredients

A white, 100% cotton slipcover (or other natural fiber like linen, hemp, rayon or silk)
Soda Ash (Sodium Carbonate – often called “pH Up”. It’s available in the pool supply aisle at big box stores, your local pool supply store or online dye suppliers.
Procion MX Fiber Reactive Dyes. Available from: Dharma Trading, for West coast folk and Prochemical and Dye for East coast folk.
1 large Rubbermaid type container – the size of a laundry basket
3-4 smaller plastic containers, a bit smaller than a laundry basket
1 empty gallon milk jug
3-gallon bucket
An accurate scale or teaspoons you won’t use for food ever again.
1 large disposable cup
Disposable gloves (or dishwashing gloves)
Particulate filter Facemask

A word about safety: all the chemicals are as safe as the stuff you use cleaning the bathroom. That being said, Procion MX in powder form MUST be treated with RESPECT. It is a very fine powder, and should not be allowed to come in contact with your skin or lungs. Always wear a particulate filter mask and gloves when working with the powder and clean up any spills immediately. Common sense also tells us to wear old clothes.

Slipcover Preparation.

Weigh the slipcover (try the post office). The more accurate, the better. Write down the weight of each piece.
Prewash the slipcover in warm water and let it air dry to prevent shrinkage.
Prepare the slipcover to accept the dye by soaking it in a basic (non-acidic) solution made from 1 gallon warm water (at least 70F) and ½ cup soda ash. It’s going to take several gallons to cover the slipcover. Keep adding solution until it’s covered and sopping. Let it stand for a couple of hours (or overnight). You want all the fibers to absorb the soda ash. Give the slipcover a good massage every now and then (wear gloves).
Once the slipcover has soaked, wring it out well, or put it through the spin cycle of your washing machine. Scrumble each piece and place them into the smaller containers – one slipcover piece per container. Scrumbling creates lots of nooks and crannies for the dye to settle in. This is how I get my awesome texture.
Scrumbling: lay each piece flat, then push the fabric together from the sides. Do not bunch it into a ball or large areas will remain undyed.

Dye Preparation

Procion MX dyes are wonderful dyes. They’re fiber reactive, which means that they actually form bonds with the molecules of the cotton fabric, once bonded, they’re there for good, and are washfast. You can achieve vibrant colors with a minimum of fuss. It dyes natural fabrics only. If you use a blended fabric, the undyed polyester fibers will give the fabric a light, “heathery” appearance.
Figure the amount of dye powder you will need. To do this, you need to weigh each piece when they’re dry. There is a nifty calculator on Dharma’s site that does the work for you. Follow this link.
To recreate my slipcover, I used a pretty light shade: 0.4% OWG (on weight of goods) using the dye color and the proportions below:

Dye Color

Dye Color	Code	Dharma’s name	PROchem’s name
Yellow	yellow MX-8G	#PR1 lemon yellow	#108 Sun Yellow
Turquoise	turquoise MX-G	#PR25 turquoise	#410 Turquoise
Black	mixture	#PR39 Black	# 609 Deep Black

Dye Mixture

Dye Color	Proportion of total dye	Weight Dye	Approx Volume (less accurate)
Yellow	74%	12.4 g	5 teas.
Turquoise	9 %	1.4 g	1/2 teas.
Black	17%	2.9 g	1 1/8 teas.

Once you’ve figured out how much dye you’ll need, place it in a plastic cup and add a small amount of water to the dye, mixing it with a plastic spoon into a paste. Continue adding small amounts of water until the powder is completely dissolved.
When the dye is totally dissolved, dilute it so there’s enough dye for it to be absorbed by the slipcover. To figure this, divide the weight of your slipcover by 75 to get the number of cups of dye you’ll need.

Dyeing

Gently pour some dye onto the first piece of slipcover. Massage the dye in with your gloved hands. Continue until all pieces are covered. Try to have about the same amount of dye in the bottom of each tub. If you pour too much dye into one tub, just pour it into another one.

Using your gloved hands, push down and squeeze the slipcover until you can see that there are no white spots – you may want to flip the whole mass upside down in its container to check this. Once you’re sure that you’ve got the slipcover fully saturated, you’re good to go.

If you want less texture, massage the slipcover every 10-15 min. for the next hour or so. (I did this because I wanted only subtle patterning) The less you massage, the more texture you get.

Washout & Enjoy!

Leave the fabric to either sit in the sun or in a warm part of your house. After 2 hours, 95% of the dye will have reacted with the fiber. You can wash the slipcover then, or wait. I usually wait overnight to eke out that last little bit of dyeing (if your room is cool, the reaction will take longer).
Dump that whole slipcover/dye mixture into your washing machine. Run it through a full wash cycle using cold water and any detergent that doesn’t have bleach.
Then, using the soak cycle and hot water, let it soak for an hour. Using hot water, run it through a complete cycle again and again until the water in the rinse cycle is clear.
Air-dry your slipcover until it’s damp. Then, place it on your sofa or chair. It will dry perfectly flat. Invite your friends over “ooh & aah” over the wonderful visual texture you’ve created.

Remember, this was done with Procion MX fiber reactive dye. Most people think they should be using RIT, but… Like all brands of all-purpose dye, Rit is a mixture of two kinds of dyes – an acid dye and a direct dye. The acid dye will wash out of cotton because they work only on animal fibers such as wool, or on nylon (but not on other synthetics). The other duller in color and bleeds with every single washing.

Thanks, Candy for such detailed and easy to follow instructions. Personally, I think I’ll use the ready-mixed dye. I’m definitely inspired to try dyeing something. Excuse me while I find the cat.