Tie Dye 101 - Pottstown,PA

I never used a kit. Just RIT dye from the grocery store. It's been awhile but I think I remember having to boil water to make the dye set. I used the kitchen sink to do my projects. You need lots of thick rubber bands.
Sounds like a fun project tho, and yes, best done outside with 9 yr olds. You are brave! :)

Lots of different sized rubber bands to get differnt effects. Lots of different buckets for the colors. A line is good to hang the shirts up.
Not sure if the kit offers this tip, but leave the rubbers bands in overnight with dye on them and do not cold rinse for at least 24-hours (makes the color really soak into the fabric) when they get up in the AM that is when they should rinse and then take out the rubber bands to see their creations.
Also do a YouTube search for tie dye designs and let the girls watch a few to see what differnt folds, twists, etc will do to create their shirts.
OH! also if you have turkey basters, that can help if doing swirl styles to get colors into certain areas, but not on the whole shirt!
Best!

The package should have directions. If you want a lot of details check out the Dharma Trading Company web site--they have been in the ite dye business for 40+ years and have a directions page. The shirts need to be all cotton (or at least 90%). Packaged undershirts like Hanes, Fruit of the Loom, etc. have always worked fine for me. You can use them straight out of the package. Make sure you soak them through with the soda ash solution (10 minutes is enough usually. The soda ash is the fixative for the dye so if you have a dry spot it won't take the dye. Basic steps are to soak the shirts in soda ash solution, twist and rubber band, then put on the dye. Once the dye is on you need to leave it alone to soak into the fibers for at least 4 hours (overnight is better). Washing out takes a while. Rinse under running water (warm is good since you will be rinsing for a while) until the dye has mostly stopped running out and water is clear or close to clear. then wash separately in washing machine on warm or hot (hot is better but may shrink things, I get shirts a little big for this reason). If you dodn't want to do every shirt at your house then you can send them home wet in a large Ziplock bag (squeeze out enough dye it isn't a drippy mess).

Anyway, if you have questions you can send me a message. I've done lots of tie dye over the years and even sold some.

I do this with my Girl Scout troop every year. If you're prepared it's very fun. The directions on the box are pretty good, but depending on how heavy handed the girls are you may not have enough dye. Some things to remember:

Outside is better, but if your using a picnic or camp table cover it with PLASTIC covers. The dye WILL stain. You can get them at a dollar store. Newspaper won't work. The dyes will go right through.

The dye will also stain their clothes so use aprons or smocks or old clothes that you don't mind getting ruined.

Have lots and lots of rubber-bands. The process includes twisting the clothes into knots and then securing with a rubber band. There are a number of ways to do this. There should be some on the directions. If not Google tie dying. I'm sure there are plenty of sites that will give picture instructions.

When using the dye, try to isolate the colors on each knot. If too may colors are used in one spot they can bleed into each other and the final result will be a dull greenish brown muddy looking mess. I'm actually wearing a shirt right now that I learned that bit of advice from :)

After the colors are set rinse the items out with cool tap water before drying. The directions for this should also be in the kit.

And the single best advice I can give you:

Have plastic bags on hand. The dye needs to set. The longer they set the more vivid the colors will be. We always left our overnight. If each girl has her own bag you'll be able to isolate the clothing items from each other and you can mark the bag so each girl knows who's item is who's. This will also help avoid confrontation if someone likes someone else's item better than their own. No doubt who belongs to what if the bags are labeled. And yes even with my scouts someone always tries to claim another's work. Sad but true :(

Oh, and you may want to get a shirt for yourself. The first year I did this with my troop I only got shirts for the girls and it sounds so awful, but I was way jealous of them after I saw how cool they turned. Now when we tie dye everyone gets a shirt.

Have a great time!

I've never used a kit either, I'm a RIT dye girl as well, although I've heard there's another dye that's much better, not sure what it is though, although I'm sure you can google it. Use buckets or tubs that you don't "need" and don't care if they stain. Get at least another kit, maybe 2 if you can return an unopened one. I also agree to have a few items to dye and if you can't afford to buy more things for the girls then just ask the girls to bring some items and that you'll supply 1 shirt. I'm sure they'll come with underwear, socks, whatever! After you dye the shirts you should wash them in the wash with vinegar to help set the dye. Before you wash them you may want to label the inside tag with the girl's name, just in case they all do the same colors, etc....And YES of course do it outside, Girl!! ;) Sounds fun, I'm sure it will be a blast!

Make sure the girls are wearing old clothing too.

Does the kit say its for 8 people? If so I would pick up another kit. I happened to be over my friends house for her niece's sleepover. I watched the girls color shirts and they just soaked the ink in the shirts so I felt as though the ink didn't go far. Although really soaking them alows for a brighter shirt. Just make sure the girls use a lot of rubber bands, the more the better for the tie dye look.

I'll try to simplify this as much as possible (although it will be lengthy, but I'll try to be as clear as possible). We tie dye all the time.

First, did you open your tie dye kit? There will likely be instructions in there for not only how to prep your fabric (i.e. does it need to be pre-washed? wet? dry? we always pre-wash ours, and have them damp when we actually tie die them), and most likely it will also have an instruction sheet with some basic/common tie dye rubber banding patterns to follow. I learned many of our techniques simply from looking at those instruction sheets. If your kit doesn't include a technique sheet, you can certainly google simple tie dye patterns. **Ok, not so much. I just googled it to find you a link, and it is not as easy as I expected to find 'simple' tie dye patterns with simple instructions to follow. If you don't have an instruction sheet in your kit, pm me and I'll give you some specific instructions on basic rubber banding patterns to create some great looks.

Make sure you get an extra bag of different sized rubber bands to be sure you have enough on hand, and of varying sizes. Be aware that some dyes require salt in hot water, others just require water, so again, read your dye and see what it calls for. If you need salt, you'll want to make sure to have enough on hand. And get a bag of latex gloves for everyone to wear. Do have the kids bring/wear old clothes. They WILL get dye on their clothes, and bodies, etc. Definitely do this outside, if you can...

You can tie dye one of two ways, by squirting the dye onto the rubber banded shirts, or by soaking the rubber banded shirts in a bucket with the dye in it. We do both. If you want multiple colors on one shirt, you have to squirt the colors on with the bottles provided. With this method, you want to try not to overlap the colors, and you need to try to soak through the layers of the fabric to avoid too much white left on the shirt, although some is white is necessary to create the effects, but any spot of fabric under a rubber band will remain white. There does not have to be any rhyme or reason to 'where' you squirt the various colors, any design will create an interesting effect, really.

If you want to simplify things, and do single color shirts, you will need to get some buckets (we've used large salad type bowls or large soup pots that we have in the house - you don't need huge buckets unless you plan to have more than a couple shirts in any given color at a time.) If you are soaking, you need to make sure that the dye is squeezed into the fabric well (we often do a pattern where all you do is crumble the shirt up into a tight ball, and rubber band around it to hold it together, then soak the ball in the dye... this creates a cool effect, but you have to make sure to really squeeze the ball in all directions to squeeze the dye into the innermost part of the shirt ball, or you will get large white patches on the finished shirt where the dye didn't get in, which you wouldn't want.)

We used to leave our shirts overnight, but due to a need for instant gratification, we stopped doing that! We'll let them sit for a couple hours, then rinse, and honestly, I don't notice a bit of difference in the ones that sat overnight, to the ones that sat for a couple hours, in terms of colorfastness or intensity. With this being a party, I'd say the girls will want their shirts done rather quickly, so I don't think you need to let them sit overnight.

After our shirts have sat for a couple hours, I'll take them to the washtub and remove the rubber bands and give them a thorough rinse with cool water until the water runs mostly clear (it's near impossible to get all the excess dye out without washing in the machine.) Be prepared to do a LOT of wringing. My hand and forearm muscles are always sore the day after we tie dye! LOL

When we tie dye, I get a plastic table cloth or tarp (dollar store) to keep dye messes to a minimum. You will need a place to lay the rubber banded and dye laden shirts while they set. Do not let shirts with different colors touch one another as they set, or as you rinse them, or you will get color bleeding. Also be aware that any dye on your gloves will transfer to the fabric when you touch it, so if you just had your hands in red dye, and pick up a white shirt that you want to dye blue, you'll have purple spots on that shirt. The shirts are very sensitive to 'catching' the dye. Also, when you open the dye packets, I'm assuming it's a fine powder, that powder will transfer to the shirts as well... say, if you open the packet on the counter, to add to the water, and some dye dust lays on the counter, if you set a damp shirt on that fine, almost invisible powder, you will see that it instantly picks up that dye. So you just want to be cautious. (Of course bearing in mind this is a fun craft project for kids, not something that needs to be perfect to sell or something, so little snafus are no big deal.)

Once you have all your shirts rubber banded, with dye on them, lay them out on your plastic cloth. Let them sit for a couple hours. Rinse well. Wash like colors together in your machine with laundry soap. Dry. Voila! Tie dyed shirts! Such a fun project. We love it and do it a couple times a year. My son is 5 and loves to do his own...

Good luck! We love tie dying! If you have any specific questions, please pm me!

Added: I like the idea of using plastic grocery or ziploc bags with the girls names on them to keep the shirts from accidentally coming in contact with one another, keep the mess contained to the bag, and to keep them from claiming someone else's shirt!

We are doing this today with my daughter and a friend. We just did it a few days ago too! We got a kit that sounds similar. Read the directions as many times as it takes to understand. I noticed the kits and dye can be different. Ours has a soda ash wash where some other kits don't (as an example of the difference). Let it set longer than they say, go slow, and have fun. Lot of good advice below I'll try not to repeat anything.

~We had a seperate small table for tieing the shirts and one for dyeing.
~YouTube had lots of videos about tieing and are fun to watch.We found looking at these VERY helpful.
~practice tieing the shirts before actually tie dyeing them.
~Have extra gloves on hand. For small hands you can use a (not too tight) rubberband around the wrists to hold the gloves on.
~garbage bag or can for garbage,
~Gallon Freezer bags to put the Tshirst in while they set. Less messy than just plastic wrap.

I'm glad you got a kit that does more than you need. Our kits say 8 but we barely got 6 out of the last one and we didn't saturate the shirts with dye. Have Fun!.

Me my mom and my sister all did tie dye shirts an stuff when me and my sister were younger. We just followed the directions on the box. It was sooo much fun and the kids will have a blast. I'm sorry I may not be much help. Yes it would be easier to do it outside. Just make sure that you have enough clothing to dye before you start. there is enough dye in those kits for lots of clothing. when we did it we each got like 3 pairs of socks, 2 or 3 pairs of undies, bras, and like 3 shirts each that were dyed. we also had just a little bit of color left so we did a pair of my dads underwear thinking it would be a funny joke, he loved them. LOL

Read the directions about if the need to wash shirts before. make sure you have preshrunk shirts so they do not shrink when you wash them. I know that you need to rubberband the shirts and dye them. dip each section in a seperate color. I would think that the kids you have some shorts and a shirt that can get dye on them. I think you are definantly thinking ahead. Once they are dyed let them dry out in the sun for a little while. Once they are dry them I would take the rubberbands off and let the shirts dry a little more. I would get a big plastic tarp,put it on the grass and do the shirts with the girls. It is fun,have a good time and a good first experience.

The beauty is that these girls are old enough to help read and follow the directions, and some of them may have done it before. I say, take a few deep breaths and relax, it's going to be fine. You have instructions and materials (buckets or containers for each color?), and the fun part about tie dye is things turning out different each time, so you don't have to be perfect, it's about experimentation. It'll be great, don't worry.

Get a few large 5-gallon buckets at the local hardware store ($3-5 each) to separate your dye colors.

Get a lot of rubber bands. There are different tye-dye techniques you can look up online. Either a lot of cocentric circles, or put little 'flowers' of rubber bands here and there (try not to put them right on the boob area or it'll look awkward). Google "Tye Dye Patters" for ideas. Make sure your rubber bands are TIGHT. If they come loose it won't look good.

Not sure about pre-washing, but read instructions regarding whether to let the shirts dry then wash. But yes, I would wash them that evening so that the parents don't have to do one little load the first time they wash their daugther's shirt.

If you have 3 or 4 colors and the girls want to dip yellow and purple, make sure they dip their shirt in the yellow FIRST, THEN the purple, as to not change the yellow into a brownish color.

YOu'll likely have dye left over. Have the girls bring a white pillow case or any other white shirt (tank top, socks, plain white bandana). If you have the dye, why not use it up?

Have fun!

This may be a little late....I am part of a 4H group of girls, we "tie dyed" shirts for a 4H event. It was not your conventional method of tie dying...but it was so EASY!! First you lay out news paper on the floor, preferbly outside, place the shirts on the news paper, and then twist the shirts with your fingers all over the shirt, then you take spray paint, and just spray the shirts!!! You can use how ever many colors you like. then you just flip it over, and do the same to the back of the shirt. No mess to clean up, just pick up the news papers, and throw them away. Hang the shirts out to dry, and wash them as normal, after they are completly dry. It looks so cool, and it is so easy...it would work for any age group. I am not very good at giving directions in writing, so if any one would like to contact me with more detailed directions please feel free to contact me at ____@____.com
I was a little hesitant about doing it this way...was not sure how it would feel, and hold up after repeated washings, but, after washing the shirts, they were very soft, and we have had the shirts for a couple of years now, and they still look like they did the day we did them.

If you want to have a nice, spiral design, lay the shirt out flat, then pinch it wherever you want the center of the sprial to be on the shirt. Start twisting the shirt around where you pinch, trying to keep the folds even as you spin it around. It should end up looking like a cinnamon roll when you're finished. Make it as tightly twisted as you can. The tighter the twist, the crisper the lines. Keep it all together with some rubber bands - 5 or 6 should work. When you apply the dye, do it in "pie" sections, not just willy nilly colors.

If you have a "Firehouse Subs" near you, you can buy 5 gallon pickle buckets for $2 each.....they use it as a fundraiser. Sunds like a fun party, good luck!