How to Make a Tie-Dye T-Shirt With Cabbage

Use red cabbage to make a tie-dyed T-shirt.

Commonly associated with '60s and '70s subcultures, tie-dye is always going in and out of style. Grateful Dead fans, summer camp kids and activists continue to make and wear tie-dyed garments regardless of current trends. To avoid buying and handling expensive, unnatural dyes, you can make your own dye with red cabbage, which can make a deep blue or light-pink dye, depending on the amount of cabbage used.

Things You'll Need

• Squeeze bottles
• Bucket
• 3/4 tsp. alum
• 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
• Large rubber bands

Instructions

1. Simmer red cabbage leaves in a pot of water for 1 hour. Use more leaves for a darker color and fewer leaves for a lighter color. For a multicolored shirt, consider making several batches of dye in varying shades. Remove the dye from the heat and allow it to cool before transferring each shade to a separate squeeze bottle.

2. Dissolve 3/4 tsp. alum and 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar in 1 cup of hot water. Add the solution to a bucket of hot water and soak your T-shirts in the solution. This will improve bonding of the cabbage dye to the T-shirts, and will prevent fading when washing the garments or wearing them in the sun.

3. Wring out the shirts to remove excess water and lay them on a flat surface.

4. Fold the shirt according to your desired tie-dye design. For a spiral pattern, pinch the shirt in the center and twist until if forms a tight, circular, rosette-shaped ball. Secure three rubber bands at different points around the ball to separate it into six equal sections. For a random "burst" design, scrunch the shirt evenly around the center point to make a ball, and secure three rubber bands around the ball to split it into six sections.

5. Squeeze dye into the fabric. For the spiral shape, squeeze different shades into the different sections. For the random design, squeeze different colored dye all over the ball in a circular pattern. Thoroughly saturate the fabric with dye, squeezing liquid into the folds.

6. Leave the shirt outside to dry for 24 hours.

7. Rinse the shirts in a sink with cold water until all excess dye is washed out of the fabric. Remove the rubber bands and wash the shirts in a washing machine, using the warm water cycle.

Tips & Warnings

• Use other natural dyes to create a wider variety of colors. Elderberries, marigolds, sunflowers, spinach leaves, mulberries and black walnut hulls make nice dyes.

References

• Kids Gardening: Dyeing to Find Out: Extracting Nature's Colors
• edb.gov.hk: How Good is Red Cabbage as a Dye?
• University of Florida; Welcome to Michelle's Guide to Tie-Dye; Michelle Klug; 2010