Dye Day Friday

So, I have always been a big fan of the tie dye pattern from quite a young age. I think it's quirky, colourful and a great Summer and festival fashion staple. I decided to give it a crack myself and spruce up some of my old white tshirts I had lying around.

 I thought the best place to start was to check out some forums and tutorial videos on youtube - I will post some of the best videos and tutorials I could find at the end of the blog for anyone else who wants to give it a go themselves! To be honest I wouldn't really advise giving it a go without visually watching someone else do it on youtube. I tried to dye a spiral into one of my shirts without watching a youtube tutorial first, and went at it a bit blind with written instructions and it didn't come out as well as I'd hoped. The good thing about tie dye is though, even if you do mess the pattern up a bit, it still looks pretty sick.

 After reading up on how to tie dye (and only doing a half arsed job at watching tutorials), I went to Hobby Craft to see if I could pick up a kit or some equipment. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a specific tie dye kit, and Hobby Craft only provided dyes and salt; I was a bit sheepish trying it for the very first time, and was worried I wouldn't do it right without solid instructions and products, so I decided to order a kit off of Amazon. This is the kit I used:

 It costs £17 from Amazon and includes red, blue and yellow dyes, a pair of gloves, elastic bands and enough salt product to dye up to 5 shirts. I think this is pretty good value considering you can literally buy plain white tshirts from Primark for like £3, and I have seen some vintage shops sell hand tie dyed tshirts for about 20 to 25 quid. It's a fun thing to do and it's pretty fab wearing a tshirt that you know you've dyed yourself.

 So all apprehension aside, I sat myself out in the garden on top of a bin bag and gave it a go; it is actually surprisingly so much easier than I thought! The pack came with clear instructions and steps that is perfect for beginners. Basically, all you have to do is soak your shirts in this warm salty solution for about 20 minutes, wring them out, fold or scrunch them up, hold them in place with elastic bands and start to dye your shirts however you like.

 I then left my tshirts in plastic bags for about 24 hours, rinsed them and hung them up to dry. Here is how they came out:

 I don't think that's too shabby for my first time! I plan to do it again and hopefully achieve some more ambitious patterns and cleaner results. When I get enough practice in, I'm hoping to start to sell a few (for a good price of course), so watch this space :)


Recommended links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZGwVMs5lBg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbjWkiQ5DtI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGldlCg4Sf4

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-tie-dye-an-old-white-shirt-or-a-new-shirt-/step2/Presenting-your-choice-of-dyes/