What I learned after tie dyeing: my tie dyeing tips

What I learned after tie dyeing: my tie dyeing tips

Recently I did A LOT of tie dying. I’ve tie dyed before, but this time was unique, since I tie dyed about twenty items. Some of my items turned out beautiful, others not as much. After I had tie dyed, I developed a few hypotheses as to why some of my tie dye turned out not-so-good. These tips (or theories, I should say) I didn’t find in the instructions, and I personally think they should add a few more details in the instructions for first-time tie dyers. 
If you would like to watch me tie dye before these tips were invented, watch this:

Every time I tie dye, my tie dyeing skills seem to improve, and yet it seems like half of the items I tie dye still simply don’t work. Here are some of the things that happen:

1. Color is on one side, but never transfers to the other.

2. Dye is not absorbed into the cloth

The dye is just a big pool that sits on top of the cloth.

3. You follow all of the instructions on how to create a specific tie-dye design, but it doesn’t look much like the one they use as an

Tie dye spiral t-shirt

I don’t know if anyone else has these problems, but they are some of the problems I have when tie dyeing. I follow the instructions, but something seems to go wrong. So, I have a few tips that might help with these problems. 

Tie dyeing Tips!

1. Wash and wet your cloth before tie dyeing

This tip should help if the tie dye doesn’t seem to be absorbed by the cloth. Wash it before tie dyeing and let it dry; then, when you’re actually going in to tie dye, wet the cloth. The dye should instantly be absorbed. Also, be careful with how much water you use, because if you use too much, the dye will lose color. You want just enough water to make the cloth damp.

Notes: (1) What might be wrong if your cloth isn’t absorbing the dye is it might not be a cotton product. Cotton products work best for tie dyeing, so check it’s cotton, or at least partly cotton. (2) You’re supposed to wrap your item in plastic wrap when your done tie dyeing it and set it our for 6-8 hours. When you do this, the dye will be absorbed by the cloth, but you can still test the water idea and see which version works better. The instructions do say you can tie dye an item wet or dry. 

2. Tie dye both sides of the item

The instructions don’t say whether or not to tie dye both sides, and it think it depends. You should try to tie dye any white cloth you can see, but it’s annoying when you have to pick a wet shirt up and flip it over. I suggest to tie dye all sides for a guaranteed good result. The thing is, sometimes I only do one side and it transfers to the other side. You could still do one side and have it transfer to the other side by doing this: wet the back side of the item with water and then tie dye the front side with lots of dye. This should transfer easier. Make sure the back side is damp enough you can feel the wetness from the inside, but not wet enough it’s soaking wet. It helps if you squeeze the excess water from the item. 

3. Add more dye

If you’re like me, you want to add as little of an amount of dye that you can so you are sure you have enough for the other items. Sadly, for tie dyeing, you need to add more dye rather than less. First of all, tie dye the back like we talked about earlier  and make sure you get the sides also. This will ensure that your tie dye design turns out bright, beautiful, and with lots of colorful dye.  

Those are my tie dyeing tips. I hope they were helpful and helped you tie dye a brighter, better item. Thank you for reading! 😊  

Note: These tips are hypotheses and haven’t been tested yet.

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