Tie Dye

There is a lot more to making a tie dye shirt than squeezing dye on a wadded up shirt.  Important decisions and a lot of preparation are both required before that moment arrives, and several things must be done afterward to assure a quality product.  I am deeply indebted to La Center artist Jeanie Gilbert at Tie Dye By You for her generous advice as I geared up to try tie dye with my students. We now process and dye more than 160 shirts each year.  I would also like to thank Colorful Steve and Mr. Tie Dye for their great YouTube tutorial channels.  

General Procedure:

1) Stitch names on collar of each shirt. Sharpies tend to bleed on shirts, so they are not a good choice.

2) Pre scour--machine wash shirts with Synthrapol.

3) Soak in soda ash solution until ready to fold, 30 min-24 hours. 

4) Wring out shirts, use gloves. Extra soda ash solution can be reused.

5) Fold and tie/band wet shirts into desired patterns

6) Squirt dye onto folded shirts. Where you put the color matters, so pay attention to that part of the tutorials too. 

7) Wrap shirts in separate plastic bags.

8) Store 24 hours in warm room/zap in microwave 90 seconds.

9) Rinse shirts in cold water. Leaving ties on, first rinse outside of bundle. Then open ties to rise the rest of the shirt until water runs clear.

10) Machine wash with Synthrapol to remove excess dye.

Color Choice:

A good basic rule is to apply two colors next to each other only if they appear next to each other in the following short list:

fuchsia...yellow...turquoise...purple...fuschia

...or, for a more detailed color scheme, choose adjacent colors from the following expanded list:

fuchsia... red... orange... yellow... green... turquoise... blue... purple...fuschia

From www.pburch.net