Tips On Making Your Own Tye Dye Clothing

By Louisa Purpura


Tie-dyeing is a fun and easy craft to get involved in. It's perfect to do with children. You can even create your own line of designs and get involved in wholesale tye dye. You can dye anything - shirts, pants, cloth handbags and towels. But for now, let's just focus on tye dye clothing.

It couldn't be more basic. Tie together pieces of clothing according to a desired pattern, soak and dry. Here are, however, some finer points in the making of tie dye that will allow you to really perfect the craft.

Invest in some high quality dyeing materials. Don't settle for synthetic fabrics - always work with clothes that are sixty percent cotton. Good dyes are easy to come by. Most can be purchased from a wide range of crafts stores. Tying can be exceptionally easy with the use of rubber bands.

Be sure to use large buckets and pots for soaking - and be aware that these will inevitably stain in the dyeing procedure. Adequate vessels should be able to hold about thirteen to twenty-two liters of dye - which works out to about three to five gallons per pot. Invest in a long spoon or stick for stirring.

Where patterns are concerned, the possibilities are endless. It's possible to make a wide range of attractive custom tye dye T-shirts with the right tying techniques. For a ripple-type pattern, gather a while T-shirt from the middle, and start to tie it. Use a few rubber bands to hold the shirt together, from the center outwards.

The whole white shirt should resemble a very narrow cone. Use as many rubber bands as you like. You must also decide how far apart you want the bands to be.

Marble effects are fun to create. Simply squish your T-shirt into a tight ball. Then, wrap it up with large elastic band circles. These should hold the ball together, ensuring that the shape is not lost in the dyeing.

When you've finished all of the tying, it's time for the dyeing to commence! The number of colors used in the project is up to you. Mix up one fabric dye per bucket. Then, add the material. For the first round of dyeing, soak for about 20 minutes. Take the material out of the bucket, remove the bands, and rinse it out. Then, place it in another color for however long you want.

Once all of the dyeing is done, rinse the material and dry it out. Tye dye clothing can be given as presents. It also can be sold for a bit of extra cash, allowing you to turn your hobby into a mini-business.




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