Tie Dye Pattern

Hello All,

I'm back with another colorful and fun instructable, here we are Tie -Dye tote bags which are 100% cotton. Tie- Dye is all about patterns, folding technique and colors. Here you'll be seeing two techniques, one is existing technique and another one is a fusion technique i.e., a basic technique in which i incorporated a different folding to obtain a desired result

Tote bag - 2 nos

Soda Ash - 20gm for 5 liter of water

Cold dye powder - Purple , Soft pink, Teal Green and Mint Green

Empty bottle

Rubber bands

Plastic cover

Dy fix solution (to ensure to stop color bleeding after first wash)

Fill bucket with approx 5 liter of tap water add 20 gm of soda ash, soak your Tote bag in it for 1 hour. This step is very important as soaking in soda ash improve the absorption rate on cloth that we are about to dye.

Let the bag soak in soda ash, mean while we will prepare cold dye liquid from cold dye powder sachets, As per instructions provided, for Each 1g of color dye add 25 g of water, i know water is measured in ml, but to keep both in same measuring scale, i have given required water quantity in grams

Squeeze excess soda ash water and lay your damp tote bag, first technique we are about to do is Chevron pattern, so begin with accordion fold/fan fold from one side, approx measure 2 inch from one end, do the folding almost even till the other end. Your fold so look like image 3 when are done.

Now for chevron pattern, from end mark a diagonal line almost 45 degree, measure 3 inch to draw parallel line to the diagonal line, you can use washable marker to thin marking, i have used soap here for marking. which will wash away in first wash.

After marking now start closing the lines and tie a rubber band quite tight. Make sure your in between fold are neat, do for all diagonal lines, you'll obtain image 7

Starting off with soft pink, followed by purple. Using pastel colors here so even though are bright as dye, after drying the will give out their actual pastel outcome.

so fill soft pink and purple alternately.

Flip it, put the same color to dye as done on front side, cover it with ziploc bag or plastic cover preferably air tight. Here i have used plastic cover, but i taped the end

Since it was taped, you can see the condensation within the cover, carefully take out the bag, start removing rubber band one by one, in third image you can why folding the diagonal evenly is important, as you can see when rubber band is removed and fold is exposed how even they are.. that brings out the beauty of chevron pattern,

Now unlock accordion folding, you can see zig zag formed aesthetically

Pour Dyfix solution or solution help the dyed color to stay on the fabric after the first wash. Here I'm using Dy fix bought from the same shop as i bought cold dye powder.

Sachet is about 5ml, in 2-3 liter of water, soak your dyed piece in it for about 15 mins.

Then rinse once with soap and in shade, this step in explained in step 15 with pictures

As explained in introduction, here i have used an idea where i came up on my own using bull's eye pattern ( Atleast i think so) i haven't seen anybody used this ; in this way before.

Lay you soaked damp tote bag, fold in center. This time we are draw/tie on the meeting edges not the center as regular, In this way i'm creating a mirror image on the other edge of the tote bag.

Tie a thread onto the marker, draw semicircle at regular intervals, this distance i have eyeballed distance exactly measure it.

Draw 4 arches, where the 4th one meets the center

Start Folding your bag to tie it tightly with rubber band, Follow the arch and tie all four.

Well i felt, this will give the mirror image on the bottom left and right, but what about top ? leaving it will give so much of white space, So did the same with top portion too. Here drawn four arches followed by even fold and tying.

In this have used combination of Teal green and Mint green, both seemed to give almost similar outcome, except mint green was slightly light in color than teal green.

Started off with teal green at 1 and 3

Mint green for 2&4

same format for top portion too.

Now flip it, give the same combo as you gave in front side. Once done pack it in plastic cover for 24 hrs.

After 24 hrs, Let's see now the pattern worked out, because this is first trail for me in this pattern.

Untying bottom one first, followed by top, Image 3

Finally opening the end, as you can see how beautifully symmetrical it is. I didn't color the middle portion hence its and empty space, but its not much of a space, as it gives a four sided twinkle shape :)

Later i regretted the color choice as it was quite difficult to differentiate unless you look closely.

Follow step 8 measures and let it soak for 15 mins

Its important that two extremely different colors shouldn't be combined in same Dy fix solution.

If you are hand washing, soak both in soap solution, give a gentle wash and hang to dry. Avoid direct sunlight

As you can see, once it dried up beautiful pastel shades came out. It gives out calm and serene feel

Thank you for coming this far, Hope you like this instructable.

Also do let me know about the improvisation in bull eye's technique !! Did it catch your eye ?

Please share your thoughts, suggestion and views in comment section

See you in next instructable !! Until then Adios