My husband and I (with some awesome parent helpers), tie-dyed shirts with over 100 Middle School Band members last week. It was… an experience. We had some left over, and finished the t-shirts with the family. We’ve gotten so many compliments on the brightness of the colors and generally how good they looked. So we just had to show you how we did it!
Here are 10 easy steps to a perfect Tie Dye! You can watch the video, with my cute children and adorable husband! Or you can skip to the bare-bones tips below!
1. Add 1 TBSP Organic Nitrogen (Urea) to one cup of warm water in a squeeze bottle. This makes the colors as bright as possible for a long period of time.
2. Add about 1 oz of fiber reactive dye to the bottle, and fill with water. Shake well.
3. Use 100% cotton garments for the fullest color. (Click to get a 5-pack of 100% cotton t-shirts for as low as $10.00)
4. Soak in a mixture of 1 cup of Soda Ash Fixer to one gallon of water.This helps the dye adhere to the fabric and soak in well.
5. Fold or crumple your garment into the desired pattern. The video above shows you how to make a swirl or starburst.
6. Place rubber bands to hold it together.
7. Add colors! Apply the dye to the garment with squeeze bottles in your desired pattern.
8. Leave in a plastic bag for 24 hours.
9. Rinse garment in cold water. Un-band, then rinse again until water runs clear.
10. Wash separately in hot water, and dry in the dryer.
And that’s it folks!! There you have it! Have you ever Tie-Dyed? How did you do it?
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PS: Amazon links are affiliate links. We got our dye supplies from Dharma Trading Company, and they were awesome!
This post was originally published in June, 2011
Nice job Judd!