Tie Dye Shirt Materials?

Question

Hey everyone, im pretty desperate to make a tie dye shirt. I already know how to do designs and some other cool things but i dont know how to make any of the solutions, like the actual dye mix and the pre wash solution. If anyone can tell me where i could get any of those materials and what i need to do with them i would appreciate it a lot, im really into doing this for some reason. Oh and another thing, if there are any cool suggestions for tie dyein that you could tell me about that would be cool to

Answer 1

RIT Dye is a good bet. You can get it at Walmart or a craft supply store. At Walmart it's usually in  the laundery detergent area. You can get it as a powder or as a liquid. I've done tye dying, but it's been a long time ago. Check out RIT Dye's website from some ideas.

Answer 2

Tie-dyeing is easy and will produce great results if you buy the right dye. It's a pain and produces dull results that fade immediately if you buy the wrong dye.

Whatever you do, don't use Rit all-purpose dyes for tie-dyeing cotton. Rit dye is a hot water dye, best used by boiling the fabric in the dye for half an hour or longer. If you try to do a multicolor tie-dye with Rit, the colors will run together, fade quickly, and bleed forever in the laundry. It is very important to use a good tie-dye kit, not Rit dye. Your results will be much brighter and prettier, and will last for years instead of a few weeks.

The best tie-dye kits contain fiber reactive dyes. These are cool water dyes, which are set with washing soda (also known as soda ash). You cannot find these dyes in a pharmacy or grocery store, but any decent crafts store will sell them, and so will most fabric stores. Sometimes even Walmart will sell a good tie-dye kit.

The kits are not too expensive. They cost about half as much as Rit dye, or less, because each kit will dye many t-shirts, but a box of Rit dye will only dye eight ounces of fabric, or less if you want intense colors, so you'd need to buy many boxes of Rit dye, only to see your results fade the first time you wash them.

Good brands of tie-dye kits include Jacquard, Dylon, Tulip, and Rainbow Rock. In the US, Jacquard is the best kit you can buy in a crafts store, but the others can give good results, too. Jacquard sells a "Funky Groovy Tie-Dye Kit" which will dye five t-shirts, or a larger Tie-Dye Kit which will dye fifteen shirts.

One of the best places to buy tie-dyeing supplies in the US is Dharma Trading Company (by mail order unless you live near San Rafael, California). They sell the best type of dyes (Procion MX dyes) and an incredible array of white cotton clothing that is perfect for dyeing. Dyes purchased in two-ounce jars (you need turquoise, fuchsia, and lemon yellow, or chose your favorite colors from over a hundred different color choices) are much cheaper than those bought in tie-dye kits, though those are still a much better buy than Rit dye. The kits also contain urea, soda ash, and plastic gloves. Be sure when you buy shirts to dye that you get only 100% cotton or dyeable rayon, and don't get the stain-resistant type of shirt, because they resist dye, too.

Answer 3

I was just looking at some of that stuff at Hobby Lobby last night.  They even have paint that's in a spray paint type can for it now!  It was about $20 for that set.  Otherwise I've also seen tye dye kits at Walmart & JoAnn's.  I would assume they carry the stuff at Michaels as well.