My kids love making clothes. When the pandemic hit we were one of the many families who bought a sublimation kit and Cricut machine. My kids love making our own shirts and my wife has a real knack for some of the more intricate mask and shirt designs. What’s especially great is that in very little time, your initial investment on the equipment is made up for on savings from making your own shirts. And that’s even if you don’t sell shirts to people which then turns it into a venture! Since my wife has been back at work following easing of the lockdown and so we haven’t been making as many lately. My kids though haven’t forgotten the fun we’ve had making our own shirts and were all pumped to get started when we came across a tie-dye set while shopping for groceries.
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
How do you make tie dye?
There are many ways to make tie dye, the easiest way is to just buy a pre-made kit from a store. They are already assembled with everything but a shirt and water. If you prefer to do things homemade, you’ll need to get your own dyes from hobby stores or online. Make sure you check the quality of the dyes before purchasing.
For us, we found a really convenient kit while shopping that saved us the hassle of getting the individual items which you can find here. We luckily have a collection of 100% cotton shirts we used for sublimation. Other than that, we just needed water!
What are the steps to making tie dye?
The steps are very easy to follow. Per the instructions:
- Set up work surface: The kit comes with a plastic covering that should fit most tables. We also opted to add a layer of butcher paper down so that any spills will hopefully be soaked up first before splashing on the plastic.
- Prewash fabric: This is very important because the cotton will shrink after the first wash.
- Prepare fabric: If you’re going to dye flat, put plastic wrap between layers to keep the dye from seeping through.
- Mix dye: Make sure you wear plastic gloves before you start working with the dye (trust me).
- Dye fabric: You are given a bottle to spray the dye. Don’t squeeze too hard because it doesn’t absorb quickly and will just spill if not given enough time to set.
- Wrap, let set, rinse: We forgot to rinse and as a result some of the colors came out and weren’t as nice as they could have been. Lesson learned.
Our review:
My kids absolutely loved making the shirts. The kit comes with lots of colors so we will be able to try again and likely make some better designs. Every part of the process was age appropriate for both my 5 year old and my 13 year old so the game should be a hit for all ages. You can use shirts or any other kind of fabric for the tie dye so if your kid wants to make a cool frame to hang up in their room, cut open an old white T-shirt and have at it! You can likely find a premade frame from the craft store you buy the ink from or you can order one here.
If I were going to do it over again, I would make sure to wear gloves first and foremost. The stains on my hands lasted for a couple of days. It wasn’t a major issue but luckily I don’t work in an industry where that sort of thing matters very much. I think we will try a different method of coloring shirts next time as well. We pretty much just stuck to twisting and wrapping in rubber bands but there are so many more different methods that we could have used. I think next time we’ll also make sure to rinse in cold water before throwing the shirts in the washer. It’s something we just overlooked because we were so excited to wear the shirts. My son was pretty disappointed as he was looking to wear the shirt he made to school the next day but the colors didn’t look very good and so he couldn’t.
As you can see from the video, we had a great time. My son gave the experience a 10/10, my daughter a 100/50 (I don’t think she understands the rating process), and I think we had a great time. I will make another video making the tie dye picture frame. I think my son will love it!