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Tie Dye!

  • Thread starter swords
  • Start date
Hailing all the hippies at sea...

I have some ideas for specific tie dye shirt patterns and designs in certain colors that I want that I haven't seen for sale so I read up on it all night last night and decided I would just make my own. I bought a bunch of Procion fiber reactive dyes, Soda Ash and Urea for the project which should come in a week or so. Gonna go out today and get some generic supplies I'll need. But I was curious how many of you have done tie dying, especially more elaborate stuff and if so, have you got any tips or even pics of your work?
 
I haven't really done anything beyond really simple tie-dyes, but I have done batique, which is a similar technique. You can use certain waxes (we used plain white crayons) to keep the dye from setting on certain parts of the fabric if you want negative space. I... don't remember how we washed the wax off afterwards. XD
~Joe
 
Hey that sounds cool, I'll have to look that up cos there will be parts I want to remain white... and adds options I hadn't even thought of yet til now! :D
 
One way to remove the wax is with a hot iron and lots of paper towels...
At least that's how I was taught to do it
 
I don't have an iron. :(
 
Washing them in really hot water a few times might remove the wax. I don't know what kinda damage it would do to the washing machine. I have never done tye dye myself but have a few friends that do it. They don not use wax but have use many folding methods held in place with rubber bands. You may be able to find some great folding diagrams if you google it.
 
I don't have an iron. :(

I'd imagine a stove and a cast iron skillet would work just as well...

I had to do a batik for an art class and we used newspapers and an iron.
 
I think that the ladies I saw do it the "traditional" way used some sort of concoction of hot mud.
You could always try to be clever and use, say, duct tape instead of wax. Probably won't be as precise though.
~Joe
 
wow..people are still doing tie-dyes?
I dont think I have seen that since 1989..I thought it went extinct..
who knew! :)

Scot
 
  • #10
Yeah, there's 82 pages of TD shirt ads on ebay but none had the designs I want so it's time to get busy! :D
 
  • #11
try you tube or ehow....i used to do it as a kid we used rubber bands and different folds, with twists then banded gave differeny effects to the color. Start with an old t shirt that may be stained and cut it into squares then do test runs with dif ways of folding and twisting, use multiple bands with dif tension. practice makes perfect...
 
  • #12
I picked up one of these at the Podunk Bluegrass Festival:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/22345210/adult-large-blues-banjo-tie-dye-tee

If you could a CP that would be really sweet.

Back when I was in high school we were into tye dye. I remember we'd roll up a shirt and secure it with rubber bands and dye it blue. When it was done, the result was a gradient from white to blue and we'd paint fish on the shirts with acrylic paint. We never used the RIT brand dye because it washes out too much. The one we had, you added a second chemical to fix the dye and the items stayed nice and bright.

After the tye dye thing then we got into marbling... shoes, shirts, everything.
 
  • #13
I did a lot of reading/you tubing last night and decided I didn't wanna mess with Rit dye. So I ordered a starter tie dye kit (enough for 20 shirts) by Dharma Trading Co. which includes several colors of Procion professional fiber reactive dye for cottons, 1 lb of soda ash to raise the PH of the shirts in a pre-soak and 1 lb of Urea to mix in the dyes to make it stay wet, starter instructions, a roll of string, etc. Plus I picked up a half dozen or more extra Procion packets of dye powder color and a book on folds/twists/etc. Hopefully the book has some secret info other than what I've learned online so far for free - lots of stuff out there! LOL

I got a dozen clear empty ketchup squeezy bottles, eye droppers and a handful of syringes from my diabetic mother so I can do more fine color applications instead of just dunking. Need to build a drip table though for applying the dyes. Thinking just a snow boot mat (18" x 36" and an inch deep to hold melting snowy shoes) with egg crate over it would be perfect.
 
  • #14
DOH! I went to the art shop today and D!ck Blick Art materials sells all the Jacquard tie dye stuff I already ordered but with no shipping costs. Oh well I know here to get more/new dyes and supplies if I like doing it.
 
  • #15
I've been trying to get set-up for making a set of tie-dyed sails, but I've hit a major road block. It seems that there are no more sail makers out there that will work with cotton any more. They say "canvas won't perform." Silly gits, I don't care about going fast, I just wanna show off. I guess the economy is doing very well for them *cough cough* that they don't want my money.

Here's a couple proof-of-concept tests I've done with highlighters and paper towels:

3f388c3e.jpg


60993aa5.jpg



Be assured, once I continue and get this done, you WILL be hearing all about it. It means, however, that I will have to buy the canvas, learn to use the sewing machine (check!:-O), buy a sail making book, learn that, and then get one shot to make it all come together. I'll be practicing on little stuff, like sail covers, a boom tent, a cover for the bog....
 
  • #16
I would love to see a boat with sails like in your first pic! :)

I know nothing about sailing, what are sails normally made out of nowadays?
 
  • #17
Dacron. It's a polyester fabric coated with some kind of plastic. Absolutely NOT dye-able after the plastic goes on.

Oh, there are other more expensive materials, but the majority are Dacron.


I am also pretty fond of the first pic. The second one, well, I made two mistakes. I got the mains'l wet and it faded, and I over-did the jib. I have later versions that look better, but no pictures.
 
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