Are you looking for a fun project for the kids? Or something fun to do with your church group or co-workers at the company picnic? Tie dying is a perfect activity for small groups or large groups and is a hit with all who participate. Who does not love an activity where you get to take something home? Tie dying is an awesome activity for both young and old and is easy to do.
First you need something to dye. The range of items you can die is endless! Most people will typically die white t-shirts but you can die almost anything like pants, skirts, towels, bags, even baby clothes. If you are tie dying with a small group of people you can just purchase a shirt at regular retailer but if you are tie dying in a big group of people you may want to purchase your shirts in bulk. You can most easily do this by finding an online retailer. Try The Adair group which sells closeout shirts for $0.99 each in groups of 12 or the T-Shirt Champ which sells white shirts for $1.49 each. Keep in mind the shipping charges because that can add a lot of money to your cost.
When it comes to actually dying your project you have many options as well. A lot of people in the past have used Rit dye for all their dye projects. You can certainly use Rit dye if you want but the color does not bond well with the fabric and tends to fade very quickly. Your best option for dye is Procin or fiber reactive dyes. These dyes have special chemicals so they bond with the shirt and actually become part of the fabric so they do no fade as much. For smaller projects craft stores such as Hobby Lobby sell tie dye kits. These kits come with everything you need for your project and can dye up to 20 t-shirts for $19.99. Many times you can get a store coupon for almost half off at craft stores. For those working with a larger group you probably want to purchase your dye and supplies in bulk. An online retailer is your best option for this as they have good prices and one stop shops for all your supplies. Check out Dharma Trading Company or Colorado Wholesale Dye. I prefer Colorado Wholesale Dye Corporation because they have an easy to use and navigate website as well as instructions and other information to help you through your project. They also have an extremely helpful staff.
In order to determine how much dye you need for a big project you need to nail down the number of shirts you are going to dye. On average each shirt should have a cup of die total added to it, although most beginners do not add anywhere near that much. The shade of the color you want also makes a difference in how much dye you need. Lighter shades require less dye while darker shades require more dye. To make figuring out dye easily let’s assume your project has 100 shirts. For dark dye shades you can assume you need about 1 oz of dye for every 5 shirts. So if you have 100 shirts you divide 100 shirts by 5 and you need 20 ounces of dye. Purchase less dye for medium or light shades, use 1/3 of the dark amount for light dyes and 2/3 of the dark amount for medium shades. You can also control the shade of your dye while you are mixing the dye solution so just make sure you purchase enough if you decide you want dark colors. How you mix up that 20 ounces is up to you, you can purchase 8 oz of one color and 4 oz of three other colors or any combination you like as long as the total amount of dye is 20 ounces.
Once you have your dye mix you need the proper chemicals to make it work. You need to purchase a chemical called Urea. Urea helps the dye properly dissolve in the water so that it mixes properly and also helps the dye fix to the fabric so that it does not wash out. For your 100 shirt project you need about 6 pound of Urea. You can also purchase a chemical called Ludigol. Its purpose is to make sure the dye does not break down too much in the water and aids in the dye’s reaction to the fabric. Unless you plan on keeping the dye around for a long time it is not really necessary to purchase this chemical, I did not and the shirts came out fine. If you choose to purchase it, 4 ounces will cover more than 100 shirts. The last and most important chemical you need is called Soda Ash. Soda Ash is required in order to make the fiber reactive dyes work; it causes the chemical reaction that makes the dye react with the shirt fibers and causes a chemical bond so the dye remains on the shirt after it is washed out.
The best way to go about dying is to do squirt bottle dying, if you do vat-dying, where you big buckets of die the soda ash will break down the dye when you dip it in it and it quickly becomes ineffective. Vat-dying is best if you only want to use one color of dye per shirt. I recommend using plastic quirt bottles. For a group of 100 I recommend two or three bottles for each color in a 16 oz size. If all 100 people are doing it at the same time I would recommend a lot more! You will also want to purchase gloves, aprons, buckets, rubber bands, and plastic bags. You will also need tables that are covered and newspaper in order to make your project work.
Now that you have all your supplies you will need to prep for your project. Your first step will be to create the soda ash bath. Because the longer you let your new shirt soak in the soda ash the better it will come out in the end you will want to get it in the bath as soon as possible. Take one of your buckets and fill it with 1 gallon of warm water and then mix in ¾ cups of the soda ash. You can double or triple those amounts depending on how many shirts you want to soak at one time. Make sure you where gloves when you are working with the dye and chemicals because the dye can stain your skin and clothes and the chemicals can irritate your skin. Next you need to mix all your dye colors. I recommend you use milk jugs for your mixing because you can easily measure the amount of water in it and it pours easily into the squirt bottles. You will want to fill the milk jug with warm water almost to the top, just leave enough room to put in the powdered dye and mix it up. Next add to the water in the jug 1 ½ cups of the urea. Depending on how strong you want your dye colors, add about 4-5 tablespoons of dye to the water solution for dark colors, 2-3 tablespoons for medium colors and ½-2 tablespoons for light colors. Once you have added the desired amount of dye and the chemical urea, mix it all together and you are ready to dye with that color. Repeat the process for each color of dye you have. You can then use a funnel to pour the dye from the milk jug into the squirt bottles.
Now you are ready to dye your shirts! Take your shirt out of the soda ash bath and wring out all the lose water. You will then want to lay it out flat in order to tie it up to create your tie dye pattern. You can create a star pattern by pinching the center of the shirt up and then twisting the fabric until it forms a roll, use your hands to get the loose ends into the roll. Secure with rubber bands, you can not use too many so do not worry about the number of rubber bands used. For a marbled pattern, wad the shirt up in any random way and secure with rubber bands. There are many other types of patterns you can do so just do a quick internet search to find a pattern you like. Once the shirt has been rubber banded in the pattern you desire place it on some newspaper and choose the colors you want on your shirt. Keep in mind the color wheel. You want to put colors that are next to each other on the color wheel next to each other on the shirt, that way when they touch it creates a third color and looks good. If you put colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel you will end up with brown where the two colors meet. Once you start applying the dye you must remember to use enough so that your shirt is thoroughly covered with dye. You must get into the folds if you do not want a lot of white on your shirt. As a rule of thumb if dye is not running out onto the newspaper you probably do not have enough dye on your shirt. Do not forget to dye both sides of the fabric. Once you are happy with your creation and you are certain you have put enough dye on the shirt then place your shirt in a plastic bag with the rubber bands still on and leave it there overnight so that the dye can penetrate the fabric. The next day you will need to remove the rubber bands and untie the shirt. Then rinse out the loose dye that is still in the shirt in the sink until the water runs clear. Once that is done you can wash the shirt in the washing machine by itself. It is ok to use laundry detergent. Wash as many times as necessary so that the rinse cycle water is completely clear. Dry the shirt as you normally would and enjoy your creation!
Getting started with tie dye can be a lot of work and takes some money to get started but I guarantee your group will love this activity. It also makes a great fundraiser!
