Basics of Tie-Dye 101

Hello All,

How's is it going for you all.. Its almost spring season in my country so climate is perfect for indulging in new hobby ideas. Tie-Dye Technique maybe old but still it has not gone out of fashion. It's very new to me as this is the first time hands on experience. So this instructable is for hobby enthusiast who would like to explore by dipping their hands into colours.. LITERALLY..... of course with gloves on it. Starting with cold dye that even kids can enjoy with their friends night party or weekend fun. Then we'll further dive deep into by knowing the basics of working with hot dye and shibori patterns (old Japanese techniques of dyeing). Share the insights of few mistakes down the road so that it can be avoided in your projects

Skill Required : Beginner level

Cold dye supplies

• Cold dye powders - Lemon yellow, Cobalt blue and Bright Red
• 100 % Cotton T-Shirts - 2nos
• Rubber bands
• Pre-washing Fixative powder
• Mini Squeezer bottles
• Plastic tray
• Wire rack - rectangle size preferably
• Zip loc bags
• Hand Gloves

Hot Dye Supplies

• Hot Dye powders - Have chosen parrot green and orange
• Rock salt or Soda ash
• Double layered hot pan
• Rubber bands
• Wooden shapes for Shibori pattern
• Bucket or container

I purchased this powder along with my cold dye powder, basically to remove the starch from cotton. In presence of starch there might be unplanned white spots, removing starch helps cold dye absorption rate. I followed the instructions mentioned by manufacturer. Soaked 2nos T-shirts and 1no Kerchief/Napkin in 7 litre of water with 50g of this powder for 20 minutes.

While your T-shirt are soaking , meanwhile let's get on with colours As mentioned earlier, this is my first time for tie-dye experiment, so i bought only the primary colours (Red, Yellow, Blue) decided to make secondary colours (Purple, Orange, Green) from primary colours.

Image 1 Top cup from left contains Yellow, Blue and Red

Bottom cup from left contains combination of Red & Yellow = Orange ; Blue & Yellow = Green ; Red & Blue = Purple

Mixature of solid powder was done in equal proportion; For e.g: 1g red and 1g yellow gave 2g of orange

So filled 2g of cold dye powder in 100ml of tap water and tested out sample in tissue paper, Look how bright and vibrant they are !!

After mixing those in paper cup transfer to squeezer tube; since my quantity was less i went for 100ml container with sharp tip

Starting Tie-Dye with classic Spiral technique, Squeeze out excess water from T-shirt, it should be damp but not dripping wet, find out centre point of T-shirt, using pipe or fork start rotating in one direction, i did in clockwise direction the damp cloth, it might show some light resistance, but keep it even. Manually help here and there for the folds especially near the hands area. Rotate entire T-shirt, it should look like image 4

Tie it with rubber band to hold the T-shirt and to divide the circle in 8 segments like wheel

we are gonna use rainbow colours in 6 segments and 2 segments are left for white trail

so from bottom of the circle colouring consequently in each division starting with yellow, followed by orange and red ; left a white spot

Now on the upper half green, blue and purple and white spot. Give a close look, like in image 2 and drip the colour to fill the gaps. finish with purple and white spot.

Carefully flip the half dyed shirt and dye the other side with same colouring as done before, once the dripping stops put the T-shirt in ziplock bag for 24 hours

After 24 hours, take the cloth and putting under running water to remove excess dye. Once the colour bleeding stops wash your dyed t-shrit with mild detergent or PH neutral detergent. Hang dry. Avoid sunlight drying.

After doing Pre-Fixative procedure, spread the damp T-shirt and do an outer fold exactly in the middle as shown in image 2, since we planning to do an rainbow curve, we need something to mark an arc which indeed results in a semicircle as t-shirt is folded. Also make sure that marking is washable. So you can use washable markers, i used detergent soap as i didn't have those markers. I felt marking can be done with a thin bar like this and tied a thread to create a perfect arc.. at least I tried for perfect one :P

Check the distance and acknowledge the location where you want to start the first arc, hold the string strong in one hand and draw in another hand. First arc came out good for first try. Also calculate the distance between arcs based on the dividends, Planned for 6 dividends and each approx size of 1.5cm so 9 cm inbetween

once reference is drawn now start folding according with mark, neatly start stacking one behind another and tie at top and bottom, string out the cloth with hand before tieing

Earlier step top and bottom in tied, now start adding rubber band at interval of 1.5 cm evenly as possible. Also happy accident happened as i mixed the colour in the same table, after putting the T-shirt on table and marking, invisible dye powder (atleast for my eye) started appearing in T-shirt as mini dots. They were not visible on table but damp cloth absorbed those. Moral i learnt from this, always double ensure whether table is ultra clean, even though it looks clean, wipe off with damp cloth, before start dyeing. As far this design i liked the mini dots as they looked like fairy dust so i left it as such

Starting with purple on top, continued with blue, green, red, orange and yellow

After done with one side flip the t-shirt and do on other side too, Scrunch the ends of T-shirt and put in Ziplock bag for 24 hrs

Remove excess water by running under water until the water turns out without dye colour in it, rinse with mild detergent soap and hang dry.

Soaked in pre-fixative fabric, squeeze excess water and keep in damp condition. Pinch the centre of the kerchief / Napkin and pull it out. Tie a rubber band around the distance. Keep doing the same until it forms 6 dividends.

Starting from red which will appear in the middle of the kerchief, followed by orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, flip it and repeat, keep in Ziploc bag for 24 hours

After 24 hrs run water on dyed cloth until water runs clean, dry it shade. It wasn't sunny so i dried outside. There a little unexpected result happened in here. Did you notice?

spots where rubber band was tied it was suppose to hold white colour(original colour) of cloth , but instead dye spread despite the rubber band resistance.

Purpose of tying an rubber band is not only to differentiate the segment but also to provide slight resistance to that segment, as rubber band portion doesn't absorb the dye.

But in this case it has traveled through spaces, it could be because of two reasons, either the tightness provided was not enough or dyed cloth is not 100% cotton. So find out did the same experiment below

Initially made sure that cloth is 100% cotton, Soaked in pre-fixative fabric, squeeze excess water and keep in damp condition. This tried bull eye but picked little down corner as centre and started the dividing portion, colour sequence for in to out ; purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red, flip and coloured back. Gave same resistance/tightness as i gave in above material.

Surprised by the result, as you can clearly see the resistance is visible also giving out folded texture of the cloth

Definitely selection of cloth for dyeing place a very big role in output, first one might a mixed cotton, so it absorbed the dye to its level and remaining colour came out bleeding after washing. while in the case of pure cotton, colours are vibrant and result is predictable. Hence for complex dyeing prefer only cotton so that you can control the output you are looking for

Shibori is a Japanese dyeing technique that typically involves folding, twisting or bunching cloth and binding it and dying it with Indigo (Natural dye powder)

I have tried basic patterns and have listed below, Triangle fold, square folds. Not ordinary fold. Its accordion fold

First technique of shibori, take 20cm x 20 cm damp cotton cloth, fold the cloth to and fro as shown in image 2. Do the same for entire cloth, fold the excess even though it doesn't meet the very end

when fleeting is done, now do the triangle accordion folding, check out the step by step images for your reference. Once done, it should look like image 6. Now tie the rubber band in space where you won't be dyeing.

Here i have used red cold dye, i wanted a check the pattern that comes out when all the corners for triangle are dipped, so carefully dipped into dye until the absorption reaching rubber band and then removed. as its damp cloth absorption will happen within 3-4 secs. Also the quantity of cloth is minimal hence 3-4 secs on each side will do the trick

After a day, stretched out the traingle, look pattern how it turned out in image 2, run water, let it bleed excess colour wash and dry without sunlight. Ta-da ! you first very own shibori pattern Napkin is ready. Imagine this pattern multicolour or window screen i bet it would look great on bigger cloth size

Shibori technique not only in folding, it about gives resistance to get desired pattern. As resistor wooden pieces, rubber bands are used.

So after doing Square accordion folding,

added resistors front and back, i have used Monstera leaf shape here, tie it with rubber band

As per instructions provided in Hot dye packet

For Cotton, linen cotton and mixed cotton as salt to water

For satin, georgette dress add vinegar to water

Let the temperature boil till 70 degree celsius add the colour from packet, here i'm adding parrot green dye powder and gave good stir until it evenly distributed.

Also cloth is 2m in length and 1m in width, dye powder used was 4g in 2 litre hot water

Finally put the cloth

As you can see my cloth was not fully immersed as height of pan wasn't that much, so its not mandatory that should be like this, you can use deep vessel as all parts of the cloth will be immersed. since mine wasn't that way i flipped every 5 mins. It should boil for 30 mins as per my vendor instruction.

If you want it to be more darker you can go for another round of dyeing, same procedure as above on the same piece. To me that was the colour i was looking for, so transferred it to cold water containing Dye fix liquid (5ml for 3 litre cold water).

Dye fix liquid is something, that helps fabric retain the dyed colour for comparitively longer duration.

fabric was soaked for 15 mins in that solution

image shows the imprint of resistance object after removing, this doesn't require after 24 hour wash, this can immediately rinsed with mild detergent. Rinse and dry in shade

This square shibori technique used 20x20 cm cotton fabric, made accordion fold length wise as well width wise. Added metal coins as resistance object in this, front and back both sides.

Since fabric is small added 1-1.5g of dye to hot water bath and immersed the fabric, it required flipping too as it wasn't fully immersed.

Felt it's gonna take forever to dye that in perfect orange as vessel width is larger but this required something smaller but deep, so changed the vessel accordingly, immediately as expected it heated and dye got absorbed fast. Dye time - 30 mins, now remove and put in cold water bath for 15 mins, excess colour will bleed out. Remove coin as and check beautiful circle resistance caused by the coin

Square accordion fold gave out beautiful pattern, rinse and dry under shade. Can be used for Multi purpose

Thank you for coming this far, hope you had a good read !!

All these are my first tries which means its easy DIY project who's heart aches for new hobby in their free time. If you get your hands on these trail, do let me know how it turned out in comment section.

Kindly share your thoughts and suggestions in comment, Expertise in Tie-dye feel free to drop a comment regarding this ible

See you in next instructable

Adios !!