Tie Dye

One of my favourite things to do in the summer is tie dying. Ive being doing it for quite a while now. It started with just pyjama t-shirts but I soon moved on to dying my bed linen and other clothes. My tie dye bed linen recently became threadbare so I thought it would be a good idea to share some advice whilst I do it.

You can pretty much buy clothes dye from anywhere. I personally find Dylon is the best to use, as they have very bold and striking colours. The cheapest place to get this is probably on amazon, prices vary colour to colour. The one I'm using is Bahamas Blue, it clashes with the rest of my room but it looks like such a beautiful colour. Previously Ive used Powder Pink to dip dye shorts, Flamingo pink to do clothes and bed linen and also tropical green. These four are very bright and bold colours but if that's not your style you can always use less dye to make it a lighter shade. With this in mind, I think tie-dye works best bold.

There are lots of different patterns you can make, I'm going to share three of my favourites:

First is the flower pattern. I normally do this on my bed sheet. You have to find a lot of elastic bands for any tie dye but you need a lot for this pattern. You simply just take a golf ball underneath the sheet and then tie an elastic band around it and the sheet on the top side to form a bobble. Do this lots and lots all over the sheet to create the impression of flowers as the finished result.

Secondly is the bulls eye pattern. To achieve the impression of a dartboard target you have to find the middle of the material, pinch it, and then pull it up. Then going down, tie rubber bands in different sections, I think more looks better but that's just personal opinion. You should be left with your material is a sort of rigid column.

Thirdly is my personal favourite, the spiral. This is a bit more tricky so i'd start with practising the other two first. You have to make your material wet first so it holds its shape when working with it. Next pinch the middle and start twisting it round, the material should spiral around the bit you pinched. After doing this you might have to tuck in little bits or just help them round at the side. Once you've made this, you should have almost a little parcel of material. Its important to secure this around the edge with rubber bands, two or three should do it.

On the packet it says to do this in the washing machine, but for tie dye you do not want to do this. You will be tying things such as golf balls in your material so it'll break the machine. You want to do this in a bucket outside. You also need to buy some cheap salt to put in the bucket as well. Firstly boil the kettle fully. I normally do two loads of boiling water from the kettle and then fill the rest up with a hose. After this mix the salt in until its dissolved and then put the dye in. I use an old wooden spoon to do this, you can use whatever but it will get ruined.

You're finally ready to put your material in the bucket. Carefully place it in and then leave it in the bucket for one and a half hours. Keep coming back to agitate the dye with the wooden spoon, this is important if you have more then one thing in the dye.

Once the hour has passed you can take it out. I usually take all the rubber bands off and then hang it to dry outside for 30/40 mins. This just gets all the excess dye to drip on to the grass and dry slightly. I would also highly recommend rubber gloves at this point, the dye is highly irritant and does not was off your hands. After this you need to wash it in the washing machine with no powder, this needs to be done on a low heat wash. If you want to be really cautious you can wash it again before use with powder. Then you're ready to use it!