Modern Tie-Dying 101

In the last post I showed some of the items that I have tie-dyed. Now I want to show you how I did it in this step by step tutorial!

Step 1: Place rubber bands on your garment to create your desired pattern. Here is my beautiful friend Jaymie Stroud of the amazing fashion blog Son of Lamb sonoflamb.squarespace.com demonstrating how:

Tip: Instead of always doing the old technique of making circles inside of circles we try to think of other patterns like grabbing in different spots to crate a really random crazy print as seen here:

or like placing rubber bands the length of the garment making it look like a snake as seen on the sleeves here:

Step #2: Follow directions on the dye package. First, you need to boil water on the stove then pour it into a bucket. Add the dye then place garments in the bucket. We like this kind of dye because you don't have to add anything to it vs. the powder Rit dye:

TIP: Wear thick rubber gloves because the water will be really hot and so you don't get dye on your hands!

TIP: Dye several items at once to get the most for your money.

TIP: Leave items in as long as you want. Obviously, the longer you leave it in the darker it will get.

Step #3:  When the item is done, remove and rinse with warm not hot water.

Step #4: Remove rubber bands. This is the part where we get super excited because we just want to see how it's going to turn out! For this reason I usually use scissors to cut the rubber bands off but be careful not cut your garment.

Step #5:  Wash then hang to dry. 

TIP: Make sure you hang it somewhere that it won't drip on anything important or place a towel underneath to catch any drips.

Here is one of Jaymie's final products:

and here are the three garments I did last Monday night:

TIP: Certain fabrics accept the dye better than others. Silk and cottons dye easily but polyester and rayon much harder.  This doesn't mean you shouldn't use the ones that are a little more tough to dye. For example Jaymie's white blouse turned gray in the black dye which turned out really nice. It's kind of fun to put something in the dye without knowing how it's going to turn out! When you purchase all of your dying garments at the thrift store you don't have to worry about taking some risks!

For more ideas check out ritdye.com or pick up the February issue of Lucky magazine. Lucky featured a 4 page spread all about dying different types of fabric. Have fun!

Pin It