Knowing how to do tie dye projects is much easier than you think it might be. Here are some pretty detailed instructions on how to do tie dye projects, but you can really make your own tie dye projects as complicated or as simple as you would like, depending on what type of look you’re going for!
How to do tie dye projects
1. Do not use all-purpose dye. Instead, use fiber reactive dye for tie dyeing projects.
2. Pre-wash all of the clothing to remove the invisible finishes that many manufacturers apply to their clothing. These finishes can stop the dye from actually getting to the fabric.
3. Gather everything that you need for dyeing: Procion MX dyes, urea, sodium carbonate, gloves, measuring cups, measuring spoons, squirt bottles (you will put the dye in the squirt bottles for easier application of the dye), a dust mask (for when you measure out the dyes) and a bucket for you to pre-soak your fabric in sodium carbonate solution. And don’t forget your fabric and some rubber bands or string for tying your fabric!
4. There are a number of different ways to tie dye. Here are some different ways to tie dye your fabrics:
• If you want horizontal stripes, fold up your piece of clothing into vertical pleats.
• If you want vertical stripes, then you should fold your fabric into horizontal pleats.
• Diagonal pleats are another way to go for cool-looking tie dye projects.
• Another tie-dye project is to stitch a loose basting stitch in any shape, and then pull the threads nice and tight.
• Want concentric circles? Take the cloth where you want the center of your design to be and then pull until you have a long tube of fabric. Then put rubber bands around the fabric at different intervals.
• The “scrunch” pattern also looks really good. Crumple your fabric evenly so that it makes a flat disc when you put rubber bands around it.
• For the ever-popular spiral-pattern tie dye, lay the fabric on a flat surface. Smooth out all of the wrinkles, and then make a pleat right in wherever you want the center of the spiral. Use a clothes pin to hold that pleat. Then begin to twist the fabric; if the pleats are starting to get too big, then you just split them with your hands. Keep each pleat about the same height.
5. You can mix all of the colors that you want just by mixing yellow, fuchsia, and turquoise, along with black. Here are some basic combinations:
– lots of fuchsia and some yellow equal red.
– red and yellow make orange.
– yellow and turquoise make green.
– lots of turquoise plus a little bit of fuchsia make blue.
– turquoise plus fuchsia make purple.
– make sure that you double the turquoise when compared to the other colors.
6. Here’s how to make your dyes:
1. Dissolve the urea in water. 1 tbsp urea for 1 cup water. Make enough for every color you will prepare.
2. Dissolve the dye in your urea solution. The best dye to use on cotton is a fiber reactive dye like Procion MX, Sabracron F, or Drimarene K. Use about 4 tsp dye per cup, unless you are using turquoise, in which cause you should double, or black, in which case you should use 2 to 4 times as much.
3. Put the dye in squirt bottles or spray bottles.
7. Pre-soak the fabric for 15 minutes to 1 hour in a sodium carbonate solution (1 cup per gallon of water).
8. Apply the dye. Make sure that you wear gloves, however!
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