How to make homemade tye-dye?

Question

Most tye-dye kits are pretty expensive, and I was curious if you use other products to make tye-dye.... I heard cool-aid works good but it washes out... is that true?

Answer 1

We made it this way when I was a kid in the late 60's:

- go buy a carton of RIT dye, in the color you want. It's clothing dye that comes in a small cardboard box. I remember the box being a little larger than a deck of cards. They used to sell this at sewing or cloth stores. Strong kool-aid also works, so does strong tea, but the dye is permanent.

- buy some twine (thick kite string), a t-shirt, and some wax (like candle wax or beeswax)

- twist the t-shirt up as though you were trying to wring water out of it. The "point" of each twist will be the center of the tie-dye "starburst"

- tie the twine around the twisted t-shirt in unevenly-spaced bands.

- thickly apply the wax to the bands of twine. This is so that the dye will not penetrate those areas (or will penetrate them less) than the un-covered areas. Be careful not to get any wax on the shirt itself.

- with the ties still in-place, soak/boil the t-shirt in the dye according to the instructions on the dye package. The longer you leave the shirt in the dye the darker it gets. The twine-covered areas pick up less dye, but they get darker also if the shirt is left in a long time (still lighter than other areas). Use caution here --- first time you wash the shirt, wash it by itself (no other clothes with it) in COLD water and then immediately run the washer again right after with no clothes in it. Otherwise, your clothes will all pick up the dye stain. Don't ask me how I know this. =)

- let the shirt air-dry. The wet shirt will drip dye that stains everything it touches, so be careful of your clothes, hands, house.

- cut the twine off the air-dryed shirt. Don't accidentally cut the shirt. Make sure you get all the wax off.  

- to set the dye, run the dryer on highest heat the shirt fabric will stand, with just the shirt in the cycle, for an hour or so.

- wash the shirt in COLD water by itself, no soap. Then immediately run a load of just water and soap (no clothes) through the washer afterward as described above.

- Run the shirt through the dryer again, same way as before.  

Then you're done. As I remember, it was much easier to do more than one item at a time. You could use different colors for each item, they'd just have to be dyed separately.

It may take a couple of tries to get the hang of this. I remember tie-dying two or three shirts before I got one that came out just how I wanted.

The dye does get everywhere if you're not careful. I ended up using a grabage bag to carry the wet shirt. They dye will stain carpets & etc permanently so be careful.

Answer 2

It looks like using an iron will set the koolaid:

http://www.easyfunschool.com/KoolAidTyeD...