EasY non-MessY TYe DYing of Tshirts and Pants, including instructions and experimentation results

Take a bland shirt or pant and turn it into a multispectrum colorfest

Step 1 Materials

Soda Ash : powder. $5 for 5 lb. use 1/3ish cup per gallon (16 cups = 1 gallon) of water. for single shirt I use 6ish cups of water so.... you don't need a ton of this stuff!. Some dyes (RYE?) come with soda ash in them. Procion does not.
n.b. The pool or hardware stores sell soda ash as sodium carbonate. Any pH upper will do! you want around pH 10 or 11 to fix "fiber reactive dye".
n.b. Arm&Hammer has a natural washing soda, sodium carbonate decahydrate, that contains water in addition to sodium carbonate, so use maybe 3 times as much.

Cold Water Fabric Dye : powder. $4 per little bottle (3 quarters (<--US currency) tall). 1 tablespoonish per shirt bag, will dye a second shirt, too. at least. I use Procion MX.

Some salt (tablespoon ish)

Some ziplock bags

Some gloves or plastic bags with rubber bands

A shirt or any kind of natural (cotton) fabric to dye.

Comments

[legenda2012]

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[pandaboy292]

omg. did anyone else see the face on the shirt? its half way up the front and to the left. it looks like a skull. it has dark blue eyes

[justkim]

Had a question about the length of time between step three and four. How long do you wait from soaking in the ziplock bag until rinsing them?

[amarylis1234]

hey, i want to make one of these teeshirts that look more scrunched rather than circles. how do you get it to look like this? and what colour teeshirt do i use if i want grey / purpley tye dye?

[camscam]

For another take on the same idea check out my instructable here:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Zip-Bag-Dyeing%3a-Jays-Patented-method-for-a-double-/

[diN0bot]

how'd it go? pictures?

[amarylis1234]

hey! thanks for that i havent got around to it yet probably this weekend il let you know how it goes thankyou!

[diN0bot]

To get the scrunched rather than circle/spiral look scrunch up your shirt!. Take a little bit of say the sleeve and start mashing it together, pulling in more and more of the shirt. The more folds and creases, the tighter the scrunch pattern. Loosely or tightly--depending on how sharp a contrast you want; if it's wicked tight then the insides might remain undyed--wrap the shirt in string or rubber bands. If your bag or bucket is the right size you won't even have to tie it up. Once in the dye, don't move it too much. Also, I put a little bit of dry dye on top once the shirt is in to get a slightly uneven coloration. I think putting salt in also helps with unevening the dying. what color dye do you have? I used midnight blue tye dye on a crisp white shirt for the blue one, and lilac dye on an off white shirt for the purpley one.

[SoupToNuts]

How did you get the front blue and the back purple?

[allyrae89]

So, once I've scrunched the shirt and I have put it in the dye...how long do I leave it in there before I remove it to ring it out?

[diN0bot]

post pictures when you're done.

[diN0bot]

depends on how dark you want the darks and how light you want the lights. the longer you leave the shirt in the dye the more the dye will seep into the folds, causing the lights to become dyed. if you left the shirt in there for a week presumably it would be an almost solid color (maybe mottled?). I'd say 1 hr is prolly good. 2 hrs is fine, too. Once you take it out squeeze it out. you can either try not to mess up the shape, or you can try to give it a good squeezing out so it's not dripping wet (much). Then leave it in a plastic bag overnight. Because you're leaving it in a bag overnight, the darks will have time to really darken. I don't think this will dillute the whites too much.

[fegundez1]

you can get soda ash cheap at the pool supply,or get to know a pool guy and you'll get it free!

[diN0bot]

awesome! The pool or hardware stores sell it as sodium carbonate. Any pH upper will do! you want around pH 10 or 11 to fix "fiber reactive dye". Arm&Hammer has a natural washing soda, sodium carbonate decahydrate, that contains water in addition to sodium carbonate, so use maybe 3 times as much. I'll add these tips to the soda ash step. This isntructable is collaborative... but I wish anyone could add to it (like a wiki).. I think I have to add collaborators manually. If you want to be added let me know!

[diN0bot]

inspired by
camscam's dye post