How to Tie Dye Shirts

The hip and trendy style that defined a generation is back. With so many tie dyed shirts, pants, dresses, purses and other items available, it's arguable that tie dye is even more popular than before. Tie dying your own shirts is fun, easy, cost-effective and is sure to bring you plenty of compliments and questions on where you found such a super groovy top.

Things You'll Need

• White shirt
• Rubber bands
• Fuschia dye
• Turquoise dye
• Yellow dye
• Bucket
• Rubber gloves
• 1 cup soda ash
• Sheets of plastic (or garbage bags, newspaper)
• Paper towels

Instructions

1. Save yourself a lot of clean-up by protecting your workspace from the start. Lay down sheets of plastic, garbage bags or newspaper on a flat work surface. Keep a roll of paper towels around to soak up any excess dyes or clean up accidents. When tie dying shirts, it's always a good idea to wear an art smock, apron or clothes you don't mind getting ruined.

2. Fill your bucket with 2 gallons of really hot tap water. Use a long-handled spoon to stir in the soda ash until it is completely dissolved.

3. Wet the shirt you're planning to dye and ring out excess water. For a marbled tie dye look you can bunch your wet shirt into a ball and randomly wrap rubber bands around it. If you would rather make the classic spiral tie dye, lay the shirt flat and pinch it in the middle. Twist tightly and wrap the shirt with rubber bands.

4. Soak your bound shirt in the hot soda ash water for at least a half an hour to ensure that the dye will bind to the shirt fibers. The minimum time you should soak your shirt is ½ hour, but you can soak it as long as you would like. When you're ready to dye, pull your shirt out of the soda ash water and wring out the excess water.

5. Put on your rubber gloves and get ready to tie dye. Squirt the dye between the sections of your bound shirt and squeeze gently to make sure that the fabric is saturated.

6. Wrap your bundled shirt in plastic and put it somewhere where it can sit undisturbed for 24 hours. It may be tempting to unwrap your shirt early, but to ensure that the dye has properly bound to the fibers, you'll need to leave it wrapped in plastic for the whole 24 hours.

7. Unwrap your shirt. After 24 hours, the waiting is over and you can finally take your shirt out of the plastic. Cut off the rubber bands and rinse the shirt under running water until the water runs fairly clear.

8. Wash your shirt with detergent on the regular wash setting. When it's done, you can either machine or line dry your shirt. From this point on, the dye is set and you should be able to wash your tie dye shirt with like colors with your regular laundry.

Tips & Warnings

• Soda ash can be found in the laundry detergent section of your local grocery store.

• Roll your wet shirt vertically and secure with rubber bands. Once dyed, the finished product will have an awesome vertically striped tie dye shirt.

• To avoid unwanted color transfer, rinse your gloves and wipe your workspace with paper towels before changing dye colors.

Resources

• Michaels