I imagine that nearly everyone has tried tie-dying at some point in their life. It's fun and low-tech and has a cool mysterious element. I mean, isn't it exciting when you undo all the rubber bands and finally get to see the finished product? There are many ways to tie-dye and I've tried most of them. For most methods a sink, washing machine, and dryer are standard pre-requisitions. But I found a way around all those requirements. In fact, I can tie-dye without dye. I've been doing it for over 15 years. Intrigued? I hope so!
My family gets together every summer. To add an extra element of fun to the family reunion, this year we had a theme: The 70s!!! I know, fun right? It was a blast! What comes to mind when you think about the 1970s? Disco? Mod? Bell-bottom pants? Tube socks? Half shirts on men? Short shorts? Leisure suits? Wedge high heels? Newsboy hats? Sock it to me? Fringed vests? Headbands? Chokers? Well, nearly every single one of those elements were seen at my family reunion. My contribution: tie-dye t-shirts for all the kids! Maybe tie-dying is a bit more 60s in your mind, but I looked it up and those hippies were tie-dying well into the 1970s. (psst! I was born in 1977 so I don't recall too much tie-dying...)
Anywhoo, here's what you need to use the Ricochet Method of Tie-Dye:
Everything but the paint can found at your local dollar store.
- T-shirts. For most dyes, you would need 100% cotton for best results, but any fabric will work for this method. I got all my white t-shirts from the dollar stores. I even got some grey t-shirts and they worked as well.
- Water. A bucket will do. No sinks required. I used a horse trough. ;-)
- Rubber bands. I got 2 bags of assorted rubber bands from the dollar store and had way more than I needed to tie up 28 t-shirts and several pairs of tube socks.
- Spray bottles. I got mine from the dollar store as well. This item is actually optional because you could really just pour the color onto the t-shirts or use paint brushes. The spray bottles are good for kids though.
- Acrylic paint. Not tempura, oils, or watercolors. I used Apple Barrel brand acrylic craft paints. They are very inexpensive and come in virtually every color.
There are lots of ways to tie up your t-shirts to prep them for color. I like the following method because it creates lots of wrinkles to catch and resist the color, it's faster than creating the concentric-bulls-eye with rubber bands, and the front and back match. You could also create lots of stripey wrinkles by simply using an accordion fold, but here's how I do it to create a traditional spiral design:
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- I like to start with a damp t-shirt.
- Pinch the middle of the shirt, grabbing all the layers of fabric and start twisting.
- Take some time to define the arms of the spiral pattern you are creating. Just pinch the folds to form lots of deep wrinkles.
- See how it is coming together?
- At any point you can add a rubber band to help secure what you've already twisted up.
- Keep adding rubber bands and twisting and making wrinkles.
- Here's what mine look like after they're all tied up.
- Here's the backside.
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- Take your acrylic paint and water it down. There is no perfect ratio of paint to water, sorry. If you use too much paint, the shirt will be sort of stiff when it dries but your colors will be intense. Too much water and your colors will be pastel-like. Experimentation is encouraged!
- Put your watered down paint into a spray bottle and saturate your t-shirt with color.
- I kinda squish my shirts inside a plastic bag. In my mind this squeezes more paint into all the wrinkles, but I'm not convinced this step is necessary.
- Now that all the paint has been applied, let your shirt sit out in the sun for while to dry. You don't need to wait for the shirt to dry completely. You could unwrap it right away, but you'll get your fingers super painty and risk transferring that paint to areas of your shirt that you don't want to get paint.
- Here's what mine looked like after removing the rubber bands.
- Then I started to untwist it.
- Cool! Here's the front.
- Here's the back.
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As soon as the shirt is COMPLETELY dry, you can wear it. The beauty of acrylic paint is that it is completely non-soluble in water after it dries. Because I started with a wet shirt, the paint will bleed and continue bleeding into the wet fabric until completely dry. I can't prove it, but I think if I would have let the shirt dry completely
before removing the rubber bands, there would have been less bleeding and a more defined design. But who wants to wait that long? Not my 5 year old daughter! The photo above shows my daughter wearing her dry shirt. The pic below shows the same shirt after several machine washings.
Here's how we tie-dyed at my family reunion:
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- I twisted and tied up all the dollar store t-shirts ahead of time. I prefer to start with a wet shirt and apply the paint right away, but this method worked out OK too. We just dunked the tied up shirts in a bucket of water and wrung them out as we needed them. I even used some grey shirts and they turned out Ok as well.
- Here you can see my dollar store spray bottles filled with diluted craft paint. I had the kids help me add a few squirts of paint to each bottle, add some water, and shake it up to mix. The tablecloth: a dollar store shower curtain!
- Some of our finished t-shirts drying in the sun. My daughter did the one on the left, my son the center, and you can see the shirt on the right in photo #7.
- When my little cousin was spraying the paint on this shirt, I was thinking, "Oh you better stop her or there will be no white left on this shirt." I just let her spray away though. Turns out I was wrong. Her shirt was one of the coolest we saw that day.
- Tube socks were fun to tie-dye as well. The great thing about using acrylic paint is that the socks don't have to be 100% cotton to hold a rich color.
- Cute! As soon as the shirts were completely dry, the kids wore them.
- I like the look of just one color.
- Here's where I got the water for this project. Our redneck swimming pool: the horse trough!
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Because I am a list-maker, here are some things to keep in mind about tie-dying with acrylic paint:
- As long as it is not dry, acrylic paint is water soluble. But once it's dry, it basically turns into a plastic-like substance that will not be diluted with water. You can look online for ways to remove acrylic paint that has been dried. I used rubbing alcohol to get wall paint off my hardwood floors.
- If the paint dries on you skin, it will rub/scratch off under water. It's harder to remove the paint from under your nails and around your cuticles, but it won't stain your skin.
- If your finished, dried t-shirt is super stiff, don't freak out until you've put it through the washer and used some fabric softener. The combination of the paint and hard water can make the shirt pretty stiff. If your shirt is still pretty stiff after washing, then you know you didn't water down your paint enough.
- If you were to use a more expensive brand of acrylic paint, something like Golden that comes in tubes, your paint will have more bang for the buck. Fine quality acrylic paint has a high pigment content compared to "craft paints". I didn't have a blue Apple Barrel craft paint, so I used my Golden brand phthalo blue. The result was a bright and beautiful blue.
- One really cool thing about this method is that you can utilize white paint on dark colored fabric. Think about it. :-)
Have you ever tie-dyed? How did it turn out? Would you be willing to try out this method?
Happy crafting and big hugs from Montana,
