Step-by-Step Tutorial: How to Tie Dye as a Beginner

People find it great fun to play with colors! A dash of color can sprinkle joy into your day, and what can be a better idea to brighten up your mornings than wearing beautiful tie dye patterns? However, getting doing it isn’t an easy job if you are a beginner; that’s why I’m here to guide you step by step in creating colorful tie dye designs. Whether you’re a newbie to dip and dye or a seasoned pro, you might find something you like in this article!

Let’s start with the basics of tie dye and how it became a popular trend in 2023.

What actually is Tie Dye?

Tie-dye is a resist-dying method in which we use bright fabric colors, intense hues, and striking patterns. It is a dazzling display of a rainbow color spectrum, featuring vivid and soft pastel shades. Tie-dying gained popularity as an economical and accessible method of transforming any type of inexpensive garments, such as t-shirts, singlets, skirts, jeans, army surplus items, and more, into kaleidoscopic creations. What makes these beautiful creations unique and economical is the use of affordable rit synthetic dye. Moreover, tie dye clothes incorporate 70s and 80s patterns that bring comfort and evoke nostalgia for a carefree era.

Types of Tie Dye

Some of the types of tie dye are described below:

Traditional Tie Dye Method

As its name represents, in tie-dyeing processes, we first fold or crumple some parts of fabric and fasten it using rubber bands or twine. It is then dipped in a bucket of saturated color. Another method is to spray colors using squeeze bottles on the sections of tied fabric. This fold and tying technique stops the dye from permeating the fabric. Any part of the fabric where the dye is unable to reach will remain white, creating a beautiful design.

Tie Dye with Ice

It is similar to the traditional tie dye method, but the only difference is the garment is placed in ice, and the dye is sprinkled over it. When the ice melts, it will dissolve the powdered dye and color the fabric. You can get eye-catching tie dye designs by using this easy method.

Tie Dye using Bleach

Bleach tie dye, also known as reverse tie dye, has become a popular method of tie dye. A black or dark-colored shirt is the base color used for a bleach tie-dye project. The shirt is then knotted and bleached. The tie-dye pattern is created by bleaching the exposed fabric to a lighter color.

How To Tie Dye Clothes?

I’ll walk you through a few easy steps to dye a complete tie dye dress for your next occasion.

Step 1: Arrange the Supplies

First, choose the fabric of the garment you use for dying. Wash it with any good laundry detergent, such as Synthrapol, to remove dirt, oil, or anything that might stick to it. It will prevent the dye from becoming dull and spotty.

Next, arrange your workspace. Cover your table with a plastic tablecloth or big garbage bags if you want to die indoors. Having some paper towels or rags on hand to wipe up spills is a smart idea.

Choose the type of dye depending on the fabric of the garment; for example, fiber-reactive dye is best for cotton. These dyes are brighter, durable, and easy to use as compared to all-purpose Dylon or Rit dyes.

Arrange other tools necessary for dying, such as rubber bands, buckets, squeeze bottles to apply dye, a wire rack to lay off the garment from the working surface, gloves, and a dust mask.

Step 2: Mix Your Dye with Warm Water

Use any good quality brand of dye for clothes and mix it with water according to the instructions given on their packaging. In some dyes, you need a solution of soda ash. You can prepare the solution of soda ash by dissolving one cup of soda ash into one gallon of warm water. Soak clothes in this solution for 15 minutes before tying them. Squeeze out the extra solution, leaving the fabric slightly damp but not drenched.

Step 3: Fold and tie with Rubber Band

You can fold and tie your fabric in a plethora of ways. Patterns created with tie-dye processes might be simple or complex. You can use a needle and thread to sew a design into your garment, fold it, attach it using rubber bands, or any combination of these techniques.

To get to know about some popular tie dye patterns, keep reading this fantastic blog.

Step 4: Application of Dye

You can either dip the garment into a dye bucket or apply it directly to the fabric using squeeze bottles, paintbrushes, or sponges. Adjust the colors’ intensity by changing the dye-to-water ratio. To get more pastel colors, you can dilute the dye mixture with extra water. Max and match the primary colors to get the desired color. While applying dye, consider the placement of dye. Remember the primary colors! If you place yellow with blue, it makes green.

Step 5: Wrap & Let Sit

Here, the most difficult part comes, and that’s to wait and watch for your creation. Wrap the dyed fabric in a plastic bag and keep it in a warm place. You should let it rest for at least 6-8 hours. For better results, let the dye process work for 24 hours.

Step 6: Wash and Rinse the tied Garment with Water

Rinse the tied clothes with the rubber band on under cold running water. Keep rinsing in cool or lukewarm water while you take off the ties. Rinse again until the water becomes clear.

How To Tie Dye with Bleach?

Pick a dark-color garment and tie it in any pattern you want. You can start it off with a dry or slightly damp garment. Make a mixture of one part bleach with one part of water either in a bucket or spray bottle. Dip the tied garment in bleach solution for 10 minutes until it changes its color. Or simply spray the bleach mixture on the exposed area of your garment. To get the desired change in color, use the quantity of bleach accordingly. After the application of bleach let the garment rest for 5-20 minutes. The time taken to change the color depends on the type of fabric. You can set a timer for 5 minutes and then check how long it will take to change its color.

How much time is too long? You may have to wait for 15-20 minutes, depending on the fabric. But leaving it for a long time can damage the fabric.     

Unfold the Techniques to Get Cool Tie Dye Patterns

Let the fun begin. Learn about creating various tie dye patterns.

Rainbow Tie Dye

Spray or use a hose to dampen the garment. Apply the colors liberally to each panel, starting at the bottom with red and working your way up to yellow, green, blue, and violet. You can also use any color scheme you prefer. After placing the dyed garment into a ziplock bag or plastic wrap, leave it there for six to eight hours.

Crumpled Tie Dye

Lay the shirt flat first. Next, randomly squish smaller parts of fabric together. Continue to fold and scrunch the fabric into a compact, flat disk. Tie several rubber bands around the disk. The more you scrunch it tightly, you’ll get more white patches in the final product.

Bullseye Tie Dye

Pinch some parts of the fabric in the middle of the shirt. To form a narrow cone shape, pull the fabric up to a point and smooth the remaining portion down. Start approximately one inch below the point of the cloth cone and wrap rubber bands around it. Rubber bands can be added in any desired quantity.

Heart Tie Dye

First, fold the shirt in half. Use a washable marker to sketch the outline of half a heart on the fold. Start by creating little accordion pleats at one end of your line. Make pleats along the drawn line so that it appears straight at the top of the folds. (To get a curved line, make the folds a little shallower on the inside and a little deeper on the outside.) Once the entire piece of cloth has been pleated, fasten it tightly to the rubber band situated on the line. You can use more rubber bands for the inside or outside parts.

Stripes Tie Dye

Spread out the shirt. Fold the garment in small accordion-style folds, starting from one side or the bottom. For every inch or two, tie the folded shirt with rubber bands. You can get the horizontal and vertical stripes.

Spider Tie Dye

Begin this technique by taking a damp fabric and folding it in half. Pinch the middle of the spiral to get its center, and then twist it until your entire fabric is spiraled. To get the six wedge shapes, bind the spiral with three intersecting rubber bands.

Design Your Own Custom Tie Dye Shirts

Knowing the techniques of tie dye you must be craving to capture different tie dye patterns on your classic shirts. Here are some tie dye instructions for how to tie dye shirts. Choose a shirt made with natural fibers like cotton, rayon, linen, or even silk. A wet tshirt is used for tie-dying.

Fabric dyes primarily work great on natural fiber fabric. Black Rit dye is also the best option for it. Synthetic materials like polyester, nylon, and Spandex cannot absorb these dyes. Apart from 100% cotton shirts, you can use an 80/20 cotton/polyester blend, but the dye colors will not be as bright. Avoid using 50/50 cotton/polyester blends as the colors may turn out too light due to poor dye reaction.

You can use different methods explained in this article to get the desired tie dye shirt patterns. If you’re looking for some good quality cotton shirts for tie dye check out these men’s, women’s, and kid’s shirts collections at wholesale prices.

Tie Dying Other Items

Don’t stop dying shirts only! You can dye all types of garments, like sweatshirts, sweatpants, socks, hoodies, even shoes! Add a burst of color to your wardrobe. Design your own tie dye hoodie or tie dye sweatshirt, and bottom down with tie dye sweatpants. Tie dye tanks are also a trending item these days.

How To Wash a Tie Dye Shirt?

Make sure to rinse your tie-dyed clothes under running water until the water runs clear before putting them in the washing machine. Use Synthrapol or another color-safe detergent to wash it in a cold water/delicate machine cycle. Wash your tie-dyed clothes separately from the rest of your items for the next few loads.

Key Takeaways

By now, you must have mastered the skills of how to tie dye shirts. If still, you found it hard: how to tie dye a shirt? Then The Apparel Factory is here. We carry already tie dye apparel from top-notch brands such as Colortone , Dyenomite that can be used for various customization purposes. You can imprint a logo, design, or pattern by using our embroidery services and screen-printing. Just like women and kids, Tie dye apparel is also getting popular among men. For cozy winters, men can have hoodies from our mens tie dye hoodie collection.