Tie Dye - Intermediate Level

Hi Everybody,

One of my favourite contest in instructable is Rainbow contest, as its the most colorful contest of them all. As this year back with new idea (not exactly, just upgraded the difficulty level) not to mention its colourful and fun to do too.

Last year i have posted Tie Dye, where basic techniques have been explained as it was beginner level, https://www.instructables.com/Basics-of-Tie-Dye-101/

Now for the same rainbow contest, back with Tie Dye techniques that are intermediate level yet they are fascinating to make.

Hope this detailed tutorial helps you making your Tie - dye T shirts soon, also here you'll be seeing reverse tie-dye too

Materials used

1) White T- Shirt

2) Black T-Shirt

3) Rubber bands - Large, medium size

4) String roll

5) Pre washing fixative or Soda Ash

6) Fiber reactive cold dyes (Eco friendly) - Deep Purple, Cobalt blue, Dark green, Lemon Yellow, Deep orange, Solid Red

7) Grill Tray

8) Washable marker or Soap bar

9) Ziploc Bags

10) Fabric Whitener / Bleach

11) Gloves

12) Bamboo sticks - 2 nos

As per instructions provided in pre-fixative powder pack, add 5-6 tsp to 5 liters and let the white T-shirt soak in for about an hour, remove excess water and lay down your damp T-shirt that is ready to dazzled with multi color. For finding the left center of the shirt, fold it and mark

Attach a string to soap or washable marker and mark two arcs keeping left center as midpoint, start folding the exterior arc, it should like image 4

Inorder to keep the pattern intact use two(top and below) bamboo sticks or chop sticks tied with rubber at bottom, insert and match the marking and tie rubber band on tip to keep it still, now weave out the T - shirt right side of bamboo stick (image 3) and place an rubber band (large) so it doesn't crumple together maintaining the pleat

Followed by rubber bands at regular intervals till the end

And for the left side before first bamboo placement, place another to maintain the pleat and place two rubber bands on that side too

Using thin soap bar, have marked wave pattern in-between the tie's . Do the same for upper part too. Use Deep purple to pour on the marking of wave pattern

Do symmetrical pouring, like Cobalt blue comes below deep purple, for upper side since wave is symmetrical there it comes above deep purple, If my explanation is confusing :P, Kindly check the images for better clarity. Followed by lemon yellow, when the two colors comes in contact, naturally it forms green

So now Red comes above Deep purple and remaining space is filled with lemon yellow.

Now repeat the same pattern as same as front side, two waves - marked by deep purple, followed by cobalt blue, lemon yellow, red is poured above marking and yellow is used for filling (diamond spacing) and carefully baggage it ziploc bag for 24 hours

After 24 hours, dye would have dried, now open T-shirt and pour water to remove excess dye left and soak in detergent and dry. Now your peacock fold, rainbow colour T-shirt is ready to use

Reverse tie-dye is quite interesting for those who love to wear black T-shirt, Why this comes intermediate level means as includes handling of bleach and starting the coloring process as we do for white T-shirt

Soak your T-shirt in tap water, layout you damp T-shirt and start crumbling from bottom. you may end up similar to image 4

Instead of rubber band, use string and gather the crumbled portion without tightening it too much both horizontally and vertically and carefully secure with knot.

Pour bleach all over the shirt and reverse the shirt and start pouring bleach backside too, Let it sit for 20-30 mins

Check the spots created by bleach, quite random and interesting right !! but still i wanted to create more spots

So Crumbled the T-shirt again and this time held up the T-shirt using Large bands and poured one more round of bleach

Image 1 is taken after removing rubber bands, after that wash the excess bleach in cold water and dry it. Once dried it will look like image 2, loving this spots more as i will have more area to give color. Now soak you T-shirt in pre-fixative powder for an hour, squeeze excess water, layout damp T-shirt

Find the center point by folding the T-shirt in middle both horizontally and vertically, find the center point and start spiraling from center, adjust the folds using hands and correct the spiral rotation. Tie with thread to maintain round shape

So thought of going in to out, so center starts with red, deep orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Deep Purple. As its black T-shirt , only the bleach portion will be coloured even though the dye color falls on black base it won't affect it. Also the pouring colors may not be vibrantly visible, but you can check the pouring color formed on the thread,

Flip it carefully and start pouring the same circle pattern from inside to out - red, deep orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Deep Purple.

Ziploc it for 48 hours, personally i feel it required more time to catch up

Open the T-shirt, you may notice colors have struck on all beached portion, now wash away excess color and rinse in soap water, Hang to dry.

Slowly you'll see a drastic change as when its damp colors aren't that much visible, but once its dried you can see the vibrancy

Layout damp T-shirt, start the work by finding middle point horizontally and vertically (finding center), then mark a circle approx 2inch diameter between mid point and center on top and bottom both.

Measure radius from center of circle to the midpoint marked at bottom, tie thread of the same radius and mark the arc, which will meet center point correctly (if measurement points are taken correctly before :P) Use the same soap marker with thread to mark the arc . Presenting Yin Yang style to you all !!

Now fold the T-shirt, follow the semicircle, fold and tie with rubber band, both circles

Open the T-shirt, now start the folding from bottom line, follow the line, it will go curvy only as we are following the arc line, but adjust T-shirt folds accordingly that you don't disturb the line. Secure with Tight rubber band.

Now secure one more side with multiple rubber bands, so that it gives slightly crumbled effect.

For it to make look like yin and yang, pour bleach on the bottom circle fold both front side and back side, now for the entire T-shirt side, pour bleach on the crumbled parts except the circle portion, that should remain black, so don't go near it. After 30 mins bleached portions turns grey (image 5)

You have got your very own Yin Yang Shirt, Now you can see the benefit of leaving the top circle untouched by bleach. you can still see the markings done by soap, its because it hasn't been rinsed. Check out the back side too.

Image 3 is washed with detergent and dried, there you can't see the soap line.

This is my personal favorite

Damp your shirt, start folding from bottom to top, secure with rubber bands at regular interval, Mark triangles using soap and starting bleaching it according to marking both front and back.

After 30 mins, when you open image 1 is the result obtained, top portion seems pretty empty right, now give a spiral technique on the first half of T-shirt, secure it and get ready for bleaching it to obtain a different pattern.

In this way you'll have two different pattern in one T-shirt

After 30 mins you can check out the result provided by spiral technique, rinse with cold water and dry.

Soak it in pre-wash fixative powder for 1 hour, remove excess water and layout damp T-shirt, Since two techniques were followed to bleach, also planning to give Solid red, Deep Orange and Lemon Yellow, So no folding, direct pouring on spots like coloring a drawing book :)

Started off with red color and bottom for two rows, then deep orange for two more rows towards top, for entire spiral lemon yellow.

secure rubber band in-between color, Don't forget the backside. Put it in plastic bag and it rest for 48 hours

After 48 hours shirts were still damp, as this way of pouring consumes more dye. Run under water and remove excess dye.

Rinse with detergent and hang to dry

Result is quite interesting right? More like custom Tie-dye method.

Thank you for coming this far, hope you liked this colorful instructable, Also hopefully these technique may come handy one day for you in near future :)

Kindly share your suggestions, thoughts and feedback in comment, would love to hear from you !!

If make any of these do share pics

Adios !!