On a whim, I decided the kids and I would make some tie-dye shirts.  We decided to make them last week, so that we could make one for Big D for Father’s Day.  I need to tell you before we get too deep into this post that I had basically no idea what I was doing.  What you’re about to see yielded a lot of mistakes and near-mistakes.  If you’re hoping for a tie-dye tutorial, then you’ll probably be sorely disappointed.  If you’re hoping for some tie-dye comedy and confusion, then you’re probably in the right place.

Because we had never tie-dyed before, we bought a kit….the one pictured above.  That was Mistake Number One.  First of all, they lied about the number of shirts.  They say it makes eight, but we only got about four and half out of it, and one of them was a baby onesie.  Secondly, all the Internet instructions that I could find do not use dye in bottles.  They make a bath with the dye, which I now realize is the only way to go (I’ll sort of explain my reasoning as we go along.  Sort of.).  This particular kit comes with green, brown and black.  I was originally wanting to get one of the brighter kits, but the kids were adamant about this camouflage, which means they’re a little redneck.  Big D really, really likes his shirt, so I guess I’m glad we stuck with this color scheme, which means we’re all a little redneck.  I think we need to move to Maine.  Or Rhode Island.

First, you’ll need to wash and dry all your shirts.  Also make sure that they are 100% cotton.  I’m not sure why.  It’s just what all the directions stated.

After you’ve done that, then you can start the fun part….putting on the rubber bands for the patterns!  The kit came with some pattern instructions, but I also found and implemented some patterns that I found on-line. (I’ll include some links at the end of the post.)

I started with Cap’n Jack’s shirt.  I did the Bull’s Eye pattern for his.

For this pattern, you will lay your shirt flat and pinch up the middle, putting on the rubberbands in an arrow sort of pattern.  You will then apply the colors, alternating each section.  The end result will look something like this…

For Big D’s shirt, we decided to do a swirl pattern.  In order to do this one, first you need to mist the shirt, front and back, with a spray bottle.

Find and pinch the middle of the shirt.

Begin turning the shirt into a spiral shape, spraying more water as you go, to get the shirt into as tight of a crecsent as you can.

When you have the shirt shaped, sleeves and all, as tightly wound as possible, place a large rubberband around the outside of the shirt to hold it in place.  You can then criss-cross rubberbands across the circle with at least two rubberbands.  It should look like this…

You then can apply the dye in whatever pattern you choose.  We started with black in the center, and worked our way out with the different colors.

We were already realizing by this point that the dye was not going to make it through all the shirts, so started using it more sparingly, not attempting to compeletely saturate them.  Here’s what we ended up with….

I need to tell you here that Big D’s shirt no longer looks like this because of Mistake Number Two.  In a later step, I put the shirts in the dryer when they were still a bit damp and the result was muddying the white parts.  Because we were using camoflauge colors, this worked out alright for us, but if you want to have some white on your shirts, you need to air dry them completely and then iron them on a high setting.

I used another variation on my shirt and tried to do a line of several swirls.  Basically, you follow the same instructions for the shirt above, just making smaller ones across the front of the shirt, like this….

You then wrap the rest of the shirt around this pattern as tightly as you can (although it will be a much thicker disc than just a single swirl), put on the rubberbands and apply the color as desired.  Mine turned out like this….

And why my shirt looks like it could fit on a Chicago Bear linebacker, I don’t know.  I think it must be the angle that it is being held, because while I am not as small as I’d like, I am NOT the size of an NFL player.

While the kids were making the designs for their shirts, I made Mistake Number Three, which was not taking enough photographs to properly demonstrate what they were doing.

Annaleigh sort of mashed her shirt into vertical folds, placed the rubberbands along the entire length and applied the color between the bands.  A large fight ensued at this point because she discovered that Harrison empited the brown bottle on his shirt before she had a chance to use much of it.  Let’s just say that it’s a scary moment when your children fight with bottles of permanent dye in their hands while in the middle of your dining room.  We finally worked out the disagreement, and this is what she ended up with…

Bonny Annie was actually happier with hers after the dryer mistake because it kinda covered up the larger portions of white and made it look less like an inkblot test. The large plains of white were a stark reminder for her of her brother’s selfishness with the brown bottle.

Dirty Harry wanted to go for a sort of checkered look.  You accomplish this by folding your shirt like you would a paper fan, long vertical folds, back and forth.  You then do the same thing with the long strip you have, until it makes a cube shape (I realize that pictures would be nice here…sorry!)  This is the best I can do….

As you can kind of see, after making the cube, he put two rubberbands around the shirt to make a cross pattern.  He applied a different color to each half, and came out with this….

He also likes his shirt better after the dryer incident.  He was a little miffed that he couldn’t apply more green because I had used most of it.  Only proceed with this project if you have strong family ties.

After all the dye is applied to the shirts, wrap each of them with plastic wrap and allow them to sit, outside in the sun, if possible for a few hours.

Then you will need to rinse each shirt with a garden hose, until the water runs almost clear.  Allow them to air dry completely. Then iron each shirt at high setting. Or if you happen to be impatient rednecks like us and want camoflauge shirts, stick them in the dryer when they are still damp.   For the first few washes, you will want to wash them separately from your regular colored laundry.

Again, I would stress not buying a kit that comes with the bottles like we used.  If you make a dye bath and let the shirts soak in them, your dye will go farther and better saturate your pieces.  Your children will also not shoot dirty looks at each other for the rest of the afternoon.  Although there are some looks that might work better with the bottles….generally those not requiring the rubberbands, like free hand designs or scrunched designs.

Here are a few links that I found helpful….

Basic instructions:  http://www.dharmatrading.com/tie-dye/instructions.html

Video:  http://www.ehow.com/videos-on_5036_tie-dye-shirt-designs.html

Patterns:  http://www.ritdye.com/Tie-Dye+Patterns.17.lasso

Let me know if you try this!  I’d love to hear about your experiences and see some pictures….especially if your kids end up duking it out.  It will make me feel better.  Thanks.

Have a groovy time!