How to tie dye

You will need:

Plain white T-shirts (I usually get mine from H&M - nice and cheap)

Dylon cold water and hand dyes (I used Ultraviolet and Bermuda Blue of the first type and Fuschia Pink and Royal Blue of the latter)

Rubber bands, pegs, string, four buckets, salt, marbles or stones and a few pairs of Marigolds (washing up gloves)

I usually just use 4 or 5 different techniques; spirals, concertina folds, sunbursts and tieing up marbles. Spirals are my favourites though. I'll try and explain in words and pics how to do all of them!Firstly, wash the T-shirts. Work on them whilst they are still damp.

Spirals are made by pinching a point in the middle of the garment and twisting this point around and around. I have taken five photographs of this procedure - they are here, here, here and here.

Once you have made the whole T-shirt into a round secure it with rubber bands like thus;

 

This one is now ready to dip.

Sunbursts are created by tieing up a huge sort of nose like pinnochio - photo here.

Concertina folds are made by folding the T-shirt lengthways into concertina folds. You can then either secure with rubber bands at intervals or pegs like this.

Spots are made by tieing marbles or stones into the garment and securing with rubber bands like this.

Make up the dye according to the instructions on the packet and dip in your garments like so, and so and so. Agitate and leave for an hour. After that take out the T-shirts, undo them, gasp at how beautiful they are and rinse in cold water until no more dye comes out of them. I usually wash them on a short wash in the washing machine then (seperate colours or they'll bleed) to make sure that all the extra dye comes out. Put on the line to dry and collapse into your seat and watch them drying in the breeze.

This is how the different folds will look:

Spiral

Concertina fold secured with rubber bands at intervals (the white lines).

Sunburst.

Tied with marbles.

This one was an experiment. I rolled the T-shirt from the top down - over a piece of string so it was like a sausage. Join the two ends of thread together and pull tight like this. Knot securely. This ruches the fabric. I like the result but should have left it in the dye pot for longer for a better colour contrast.

One other thing to try is a two colour spiral. Dip the first spiral in your base colour and then take out after 15 mins or so. Rinse in cold water and then open up the T-shirt. Re-twist a spiral over the first one, secure with rubber bands and dip into another colour for an hour. Result will be:

This is great activity to do with the children, it's fairly cheap and lots of fun. Just make sure that they are wearing old clothes and that you put your dye pots in the garden. Finally, do contact me if it doesn't make sense or if you want to show me how yours turned out.

Comments

[Lindsey]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Instructions as well - great! I think this will be on our activity list of things to do in the summer holidays.

[Jessica]

Thank you so much for the instructions! i love your spirals~

[jude]

hey, looks great, tks for the tips, i am just starting to get into this dyeing thing.....

[markus]

Hello,

Thank you for your very clear guidelines and wonderful photos which explain everything so well.
Bright Blessings,
Markus, Fort Lauderdale

[Cláudia Pires]

I am Brasilian. I love Tie Dye.
Gostaria muito que alguém pudesse me ensinar, mas não conheço ninguém que possa fazer isso. Estou aqui procurando alguém que por favor help me. Preciso aprender a trabalhar com a técnica Tie Dye.Alguém pode me mandar algum curso por correspondência, uma apostila ou algum texto que possa me ajudar?
Aguardo resposta e sou muito, mas muito grata mesmo.
Cláudia (João Pessoa - PB - Brasil)

[Cláudia Pires]

Meu endereço de email e: [email protected]
Por favor preciso aprender tie dye.

[Sheri]

Awesome! Thanks for the tips! I've always wanted to tie-dye but never knew how.

[Solidia]

This perfect! I need to make cute t-shirts for my daughters to wear to cheer practices and these will be a hit with them!! Plus we can have fun working on them together!!

[Nicole]

THANK YOU for your well explained directions and for pictures. You made it easy and my b-day party was a hit!

[louise]

Hi great spirals
I am going to tie-dye a t-shirt with my son and he has chosen the french blue and radiant pink Draylon cold dyes, which should i dip the t-shirt into first as we would like to make the 2 coloured spiral.
many thanks Louise

[venus]

thank you so much it really hepls a lot to me and to my pupils

[anna]

thanks you have given me gr8 addvice but what other matterials can u tie dye with lets me know plz
thnkx

[Rossana]

This site is terrific - the best on tie-dying that I found on the web! Thanks for all the effort you put into the instructions. Much better than the instructions that they give on the tie-dying kits! Thanks so much. Rossana

[Nitisha]

i'm from india...this is the first time i actually got to know how tie-dye is actually done.your instructions are great...so easy to understand.

[Gerry]

Cool. anyone try making a butterfly shaped Tie die?

[Nicolas Shewan of Glencairn]

me and my friend have this crazy rash from wearing tie dye have u heard of that before? pls help me it hurts!

[michelle larson]

Thank you sooo much. i looked at all the other directions and didn't understand a thing. The pictures really help!!

[Bethany]

This is on my list of things to do this summer and I can't wait to try it!!

[JenniferWhite]

Great tie dying .... photos and all! I printed all the instructions and will be trying it out next week. This a great end of the year activity! I made tie-die last year, but did not know how to make the multi-color.
I just bought a new tie-die t-shirt recently, and love it. I really want to teach my student how to make it. Again, great job!

[naama hay]

hi. Im from israel and i want to thank you so much. two years ago I was in a festival and tie dyed t shirts with my two small children, the instractor had a book of meny kinds of techniques and we made the pinocchio technique and used differant coulor between every two rubber bands so the sun came out shining with sirculs in different coulors. tomorrow its my daughter's 7th birthday and I wanted to tie dye with her friends invited for sleep over and make them sleeping gowns. so you helped me a lot. thank you

[Aron]

I noticed u said to include salt but did not say what to do with it ?

[Merlin Silk]

We started to bring tie-dye - the old traditional mudmee tie-dye into the US a few years back and have only recently been able to build enough rapport with the owner of our studio that she was willing to part some of her knowledge with us. Some of that you can view at the companion blog to our commercial site - that blog is at www.ThaiTiedye.com

We are always eager to find guest posters to that blog so that we can cover more than our own opinions ;-))

Cheers
Merlin

YOUR TIE DYING IS REALLLY COOL

[Sang Yeon, Kim]

Please check our website for natural dyeing. Great selection for silk natural dyeing

www.silkville.net

[Kezz_Dog]

hey,
i was wondering if you can tie dye with food colouring, we are having a disco annd its hippie theme

P.S,plz answer or comment A.S.A.P
thnx

[brenda gabia]

thanh you so much for the clear instructions.i love tie dying.

[Nina]

Thank you so much! I've found this so so useful :D I'll be making one soon... the pics are great <3

[cara]

totally brill
thanks

[karen]

what a brilliant tutorial, thank you! Am about to have my daughter's birthday party and she's requested Tie Dye T-Shirts as the activity ;-)