Dyetorial - Basic Scrunched Folds

Yay for blogging one a month. I am sorry. I meant to get these out a lot sooner but Fall is turning out to be just as busy if not more so than summer was.

At any rate, here is your first "Hands On" Tie Dye tutorial.

The Quicky Basic Scrunch Fold

This is the fastest and easiest way to "tie dye" a shirt or piece of fabric.

Instructions:

1. Start with a 100% cotton shirt of your choice.

Wash it with sinthrapol (just a cap full) to get any residue off your fabric. I do this with everything I am going to dye to make sure there is NOTHING on the surface of the fabric that will inter fear with the dying process.

Do not dry the shirt, leave in damp.

2. Lay the shirt out flat on a clean work surface.

3. Starting along the bottom edge of the shirt, walk your fingers up the shirt, scrunching it together into random pleats as you go up the shirt.

4. Tie the shirt together. You may also use rubber bands or small zip ties if you like. You just want to tightly secure the shirt in its random pleats and folds.

5. Soak the Shirt in your soda ash solution for about 5 minutes. Squeeze as much of the solution out as you can.

6. Place the shirt back on your clean and now plastic covered surface. Apply the dye colors of your choice in what ever order you choose to BOTH sides of your shirt lump.

Be as bold or concervative as you wish with your color combinations. The shirt will look like a real mess. That is the point. Don't be shy about squirting that dye in there. If you don't, you will have lots of white showing in the shrits.

Remember that with tie dye, you get what you get. It is always a suprise.

7. Put the drippy dyed shirt bundle in a plastic bag and let it sit for up to 24 hours. I have found that you need to let it set for a minimum of 3 hours. So experiment and see what you like. 24 hours is a safe starting point.

8. Now you will rinse the shirt bundle out in cool running water. This is safe to do outdoors but the dye will stain anything it comes in contact with. It will eventially face so don't worry about permanent dammage to sidewalks and such.

9. Cut the strings and open. Now you will need to wash the shrit with Sinthrapol again to make sure all the excess dye is discharged from the shirt. I wash these in the washing machine with 2-4 Tablespoons of Sythrapol per load.

Dry on the line or in the dryer.

In future washings, take care what you wash the dyed items with. Some excess dye (usually blue and sometimes red) will still discharge for several washings.

I have also used DAWN dish soap in place of the synthrapol with satisfactory results.

Here is the same process with just fabric yardage.

You can use just about any 100% cotton BUT watch out for antying that has permanent press treatments on it, as this will not hold the dye well and will result in pastel colors. This is great if that is what you are going for, however it is a big dissapointment if you were going for Bright vibrant colors.

So there you have it. Your first REAL dyetorial. There are several more folding and dying techniques to come and hopefully I will have the time to post them all over the next few weeks.

Enjoy!