When my oldest was a toddler, I purchased quite a few playsilks from Dharma Trading Company. At the time, I used Kool-Aid to dye them. The colors were never spectacular, but they worked well enough. Years of use and some washing had the playsilks looking faded and shabby. I decided to try my hand at dying with actual fabric dyes, but the use of procion dyes from Dharma was a bit intimidating.
I picked up some Jacquard’s iDye at our local JoAnn’s, unsure of what the process would be like. The washing machine instructions seemed easy enough. When I pulled the first playsilks out, they were gorgeous. I couldn’t wait to see each color.
Here are the 35″ squares rolled up before being wrapped for Yule:
I can’t recommend the 11″ handkerchief size enough. They have always received so much use in our home:
And here is my youngest, playing in one of the larger playsilks while I was wrapping them:
living peacefully with children 
Thanks for sharing! Could you give more detail, I looked at the iDye site and am unsure how many playsilks you would have dyed with one load in the washing machine. Could you put more detail up on the blog or email me? Thank you very much!
There is a poundage amount listed on each packet. Theoretically, you could weigh your silks to see how many you could adequately dye with each packet. I was just dyeing what we had in the colors I wanted, so I wasn’t concerned about getting as many silks dyed as possible.
Thanks for the information! Did you use the fixative they sell as well? I’m going to try this myself to make for my little girl and for some my friend’s babies. Thank you!