Tutorial Tuesday - Tie Dye

This is a revamped tutorial from a couple of years ago. I wanted to re-post it because I will be incorporating tie dyeing in next week's tutorial. I also thought it is a good time of year to add some color to your life. So here we go...

Step 1. The Dye. Purchase some dye from your local store. I chose wine and navy blue. I also had the choice of a powder or liquid form. I really wasn't sure which one to pick so I went for the liquid.

Step 2. Mixing the dye. There are a couple different methods of mixing dyes, but I like this one. Place 2 cups of water in a pan on high heat and wait for it to boil. Once it is boiling, pour the water into a metal bowl. (Do not use anything plastic unless you want it to be pretty colors forever.) Measure out 1/2 cup of salt and dissolve it into the water. Make sure your salt does not contain Iodine. Once it is dissolved, add 4 ounces of the dye solution. This amount of dye will dye at least 10 pieces of clothing. Use the whole container if you want to dye lots of stuff!!

Step 3. Preparing the clothing. Put the clothing that you are dyeing in the washing machine and ran hot water into the basin. For best results, soak the clothing in Soda Ash before dyeing. The soda ash changes the PH of the material prepping it to hold the dye better. Let the clothing soak for about 20 minutes.

Step 4. Prepping the dye. You will need a bucket or large bowl. By the way, you should do all of your dyeing in an area of your house that will be easy to clean, for instance a basement or even outside because you will end up dyeing other things besides the clothing. Pour the concentrated dye mixture into the bucket. Add whatever amount of water you would like to the concentrated dye mixture in the bucket. Start with a smaller amount of water, then test the dye on a piece of fabric to see if it is the color you desire.

Step 5. Tie Dyeing.  Twist the clothing very tight, then knot the material in the center, placing rubber bands around the knotted material to keep it in place. You can really experiment with many different ways of knotting the material to get different effects. Once the material is knotted, dunk it into the dye. You can leave the clothing in the dye for however long you would like depending on how dark or light you want the dyeing to be. You can do a fading effect by placing half of the material in the dye for about 6 minutes. Then dunking the entire material into the dye for a couple of seconds and ring out immediately.

Step 6. Rinsing. Rinse out the clothing with cold water until the water runs clear. Do not take the rubber bands off of the material. After rinsing, squeeze out any excess water and hang to dry. Place something under the clothing to catch any colorful drips that will stain your floor. Once dry, wash in the washing machine on cold to completely remove all excess dye. I like to wait at least 24 hours before washing the material just to make sure the color is set. Let air dry or put in dryer on a low setting. Take the rubber bands off after the material is dry.

Next tutorial is going to incorporate dyeing, t-shirts, babies and maybe a video tutorial. I guess I am feeling ambitious.