Tie Dye Techniques

I hand-dye my own yarn! Sometimes I use t-shirts, tie-dye them, cut them into strips, and knit them into rugs. I have a store that wants to sell my yarn this fall, so I'm super excited!

After much, much experimentation with different dyes, I've found that I like liquid RIT better than anything. The Procion dyes from Dharma Trading are good when they work but the colors are off a fair amount of the time.

Do you want the image of the leaf on your shirt to be positive or negative (that is, done with a dye while the rest of the shirt is untouched, or done with a resist while the rest of the shirt is dyed?) I can tell you how to do it either way, just let me know.

watching closely, with much interest ......

I tyedye my own shirts, I don't like rit myself as you have to keep it hot to get it to stay in the cloth but for practice I'd advise getting some of the cheapest shirts you can find and practicing on them..

You can pick up a kit at your nearest hobby supply store though (Such as hobby lobby)


I find the patterns fun to do as you make them random from how you tie them up, I like mostly the circle patterns with random knots tied into the shirt for even more changes.

Main Page - Tie-dye Wiki here is a good site to help you a long, I used it for my first time and it was very helpful.


BTW you don't have to buy the kit if the store sells the dyes for Tie Dying on its own, I do that now instead of the kit because they have so many neat colors.


Each shirt cost me about 6-7$ a shirt when done.

Thanks for posting guys,
LittleBat, I want to do it with a resist to be filled in later. (if possible)
I want it to be a big bright leaf surrounded by all the bright colors I love to see.

You're gonna get sponsored to do something cool?
That's like a perfect storm! Haha
[Very informative post, thank you.]

And ToastedFox, thanks for that, I'm planning on going out for dye stuff this Friday, I'll keep those ideas on hand! I usually just buy a bunch of plain white FOTL shirts and go crazy, but over the weekend I'll definitely be posting some pictures.


Thanks again for the replies!
Happy Smoking. - Cory

you can even use lighter colors, to save dye and make even more interesting shirts.


like I will buy yellow, pink, green, and exc for shirts besides white for dying its a handy little shortcut.

as for the leaf make a stencil of a leaf just carefully put the dye on it, don't use too much or it will bleed way over it will take some practice.

ToastedFox said:

you can even use lighter colors, to save dye and make even more interesting shirts.


like I will buy yellow, pink, green, and exc for shirts besides white for dying its a handy little shortcut.

as for the leaf make a stencil of a leaf just carefully put the dye on it, don't use too much or it will bleed way over it will take some practice.

Click to expand...

Thats the only way I could think of doing it. I just wish there was a good folding method I could use. I saw one article on doing stars and shapes of the like. There was one good way to do it but I'm gonna just try it a couple of times to get it down. Hopefully that other user sends me a PM on her method.

Okay, here's my abridged version (I can talk about dyeing all day long but this is the basic stuff you need to know.)

Cotton, hemp, and other plant fibers take a totally different kind of dye from animal fibers (any kind of wool.) You can dye wool with natural dyes (plant-based) -- you can even dye it with Kool-Aid -- but for plant fibers you have to use chemical dyes. Like I think I said before, RIT liquid is my favorite dye hands-down. One great source for info on tie-dyeing and resist-dyeing is Dharma Trading Co. Homepage, and you can also buy powdered Procion dyes from them. After much experimentation with all kinds of dyes, I've found that the single biggest factor in how well your dye takes is whether or not you use Synthrapol, which is an industrial detergent they sell on that site -- just look it up. It's cheap, it's better than regular laundry detergent, and if there's an art supply store near you that sells dye, you can probably get it there (places like Michael's and Hobby Lobby don't have it, you'll have to go to an actual art supply store.) Wash your articles with Synthrapol before and after and your dye will never run.

As for the resist, you can get that at the art supply store too. It's exactly what it sounds like: you paint it where you don't want the dye to go. Make a stencil of a leaf, paint it onto the white t-shirt (this would be while it's dry), and then tie-dye as usual. Then wash it in a sinkful of hot water with Synthrapol and the resist will come off. It's not rocket science, by any means, and the supplies are cheap so it's no big deal if you fuck up.

When I tie-dye, I section off the shirt with rubber bands, squirt dye on each section (being careful not to use too much so the colors don't run together), and wrap the shirts in plastic grocery bags. Then I just leave them out in the sun for a couple of days. The longer you let the dye set, the brighter it will be.

Hope this helps!

Thank you, I'll keep all that in mind, I just got some dye and some other supplies.

Gonna try that resist after work tomorrow. ^_^