Alas, the Dead are no longer, but tie-dyed clothing is still around! It's a long-practiced pastime of hippies, counterculturalists, and people who simply love colorful clothing. Now you want to do it yourself, but the question is, how? What do you tie? What do you dye? We'll show you how!
Steps
Method One: Squirt the Shirt
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Fill large bowls with water. Take some large buckets or bowls outside, or into a garage—someplace where making a mess won't be a problem—and fill them with water.
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Add clothing dye. Water paint will work, however there are brands out there just for dyeing clothes.
- You can also do a bucket with bleach in it, if you are starting out with a colored shirt. The bleach will leave white or light patterns on a darker shirt.
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Prep your shirt. Roll your shirt up as tight as you can get it, and either keep it like that, or fold it over. (Depending on the shape you want)
- Put rubber bands on it to keep it together.
- Put rubber bands on it to keep it together.
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Squirt the shirt. Squirt an assortment of colored dyes onto your bound-up shirt. You can do one color per section, mix and match, or go totally Jackson Pollock on your shirt.
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Let it dry. When you're finished, open it up, and let it dry completely.
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Wash it. When dried, wash in washer in hot water alone so all dye is washed out. Set the washer on the long cycle—it should take about 20-25 minutes.
- Run another cycle, and use detergent this time.
- Run another cycle, and use detergent this time.
- Wear your colors!
Method Two: String It Along
- Get string. You want about ten feet of approximately 1/4-inch white string, cut into five or six sections.
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Soak the strings in whatever colors you want the night before. They will soak up the color, and hold it until you're ready to tie-die a shirt.
- Allow the strings to dry for a few hours.
- Allow the strings to dry for a few hours.
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Boil a large pot of water. Leave it boiling—we're going to make shirt soup.
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Tie up the T. When you are ready to dye the shirt, wrap the dyed string around it however you want: tie it in sections, ball it up and tie randomly—however you envision your shirt . Be careful about mixing colors—you could end up with a dull, muddy color.
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Boil the shirt. Let it simmer for a few minutes, making sure to stir it.
- Carefully remove the shirt from the boiling water.
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Hang it up and let it dry!
Tips
- You can also roll it up in different ways to change the shape around.
- Wear rubber gloves.
- If you don't have any kind of dye handy, you can make some by mixing pen ink with water.
- Try mixing different color combinations.
Warnings
- Wear clothes that you don't mind getting stained.
- Be careful what colors you put on top of other colors, unless you want brown or black.
- This is messy! Do it somewhere where a mess won't matter, or can easily be cleaned up.
What you'll need! (Method 2)
- String
- Dye
- Scissors
- Rubber gloves
- Water
- Pan
- Shirt
