As the weather gets warmer, the tie dye shirts come out! I know that I personally love tie dye and love to wear it during the hot summer months. A fun activity to do during this quarantine is to make your own tie dye shirts. When I was young, I made a tie dye shirt once, though it was just squirting colored dye on a shirt without using any of the actual tie dye techniques. I though it might be fun to give it another try and document the process and end result.
I bought a kit by Tulip at Walmart and got a pack of white t shirts. The kit came with all the bottles, dye, gloves, rubber bands, and instructions which makes it very easy. I'm sure you could get this kit from Amazon or at least one very similar.
The first thing I did was wash the shirts. Since cotton shirts tend to shrink up after the first wash, this is very important. You don't want the shirt to shrink up right after you dye it or it might end up looking a little odd.
After washing, you can begin the tie dye process by deciding which pattern you want to make. I decided to make a crumple, spiral, and spider spiral (shown in the first picture in that exact order). There are other patterns as well, but I tried to go with ones I felt were simple and easy.
For the crumple, all I did was pinch little bits of the fabric and gather them together. It's easiest to start from the center and work your way in.
When your done, just rubber band it all together so it won't fall apart when you dye it.
For the spiral, pinch the center of the shirt between your fingers and twist, letting it twist into a tight little spiral.
Once it's twisted all together and push the sides in and rubber band it all together with the rubber bands spread evenly apart. I used three rubber bands which seemed to work really well.
The spider spiral is just like the spiral except you fold the shirt in half down the center first. Then you twist it together just like the spiral except on the edge of the fold (I didn't twist starting on the edge so my spider spiral looks a bit different). I also used three rubber bands for this one and it looks like the spiral when twisted together.
Once I finished this step, I soaked all the shirts under running water. This helps the dye spread evenly and mix together to create the pretty designs and color combinations. This is a very important step and cannot be skipped.
Now it's time to dye! I placed a garbage bag down to protect my table and then placed paper towels down to soak up the extra dye. When dying it's important not to place certain colors side by side or they will make a yucky brown color where they touch. These colors are those that are on opposite sides of the color wheel like purple and brown or turquoise and orange.
The dyeing process is very simple: just squirt the color onto the shirt using the rubber bands as section markers if you are using multiple colors. Be sure to wear gloves during this process or you will end up with multicolored hands!
Once I finished dying one side, I flipped over the shirt and did the same colors on the other side. You want each section of the shirt to match up with the other side to get those beautiful patterns.
When all the shirts were dyed, I placed each one in their own separate Ziploc bags to allow the colors to set. I left them for 24 hours to make sure the colors would be bright.
The next day, I got each shirt out of their bags, removed the rubber bands and rinsed them under cold water and then hot water. This allows for some of the excess dye to escape before continuing to the last step. It would be a good idea to wear gloves when doing this part since I ended up with dyed hands.
After I rinsed the shirt, I washed it separately in the washing machine. It is important to wash each shirt alone as some of the dye may still bleed out. After this I put them in the dryer for a few minutes and then let them air dry the rest of the way.
I had a lot of fun making these shirts and though they are by no means perfect, they are original and entirely my own work. Three things I would have done differently, is make my spiral a little tighter, twist on the edge of the fold for the spider spiral and use more dyes on all my shirts. I have discovered that the more dye I used, the better the shirts looked. These are small things and maybe you can learn from my mistakes. If you are looking for something fun to do during this quarantine, then I suggest buying a tie dye kit and t shirts and creating your own groovy designs.
~Abigail C.