How to Make Cool Tie-Dye Patterns

Turn a boring white T-shirt into a beautiful tie-dyed shirt.

If you are interested in trying your hand at tie-dyeing, you may have noticed different tie-dye patterns that cannot be created by simply wrapping rubber bands around a T-shirt. These patterns are created by using squeeze bottles instead of dunk-dyeing a a shirt tied with rubber bands. When you use squeeze bottles, you can make the colors of the tie-dye run into each other in ways that you cannot achieve otherwise.

Things You'll Need

• Rubber gloves
• Bucket
• T-shirt
• Jelly roll pan
• Newspaper
• Squeeze bottles
• Liquid fabric dye in your choice of colors

Instructions

1. Put on a pair of rubber gloves. Soak the T-shirt in a bucket of cold water to completely saturate it.

2. Squeeze out the excess water with your hands.

3. Place the T-shirt flat onto a jelly roll pan.

4. Pinch your fingers in the middle of the T-shirt and twist the entire shirt up into a tight spiral so that it forms a rough circle. Flatten it out slightly with the palm of your hand.

5. Transfer the circle onto a few sheets of newspaper.

6. Fill squeeze bottles with liquid fabric dye. Use as many colors as you wish.

7. Squeeze the different colors of dye onto the spiraled shirt. With the spiraled T-shirt representing a "pizza," squirt each color on the shirt in the shape of a triangle slice of pizza.

8. Flip over the circle without letting it fall out of shape.

9. Apply dye to the other side in the same manner.

10. Allow the T-shirt to set for five minutes.

11. Open up the T-shirt and lay it flat in a sunny location to air-dry.

12. Wash the T-shirt in cold water, dry it and wear.

References

• P Burch: How To Tie Dye
• Dharma TRading: Tie Dye Methods