Tie dye is a great way to put your own personal touch on things like shoes, bedding, shirts and other fabric items. Tie dye designs allow you to make your own unique crafts. With enough practice, you can make everything from tie dye spirals, to zigzags, to suns. The key is to familiarize yourself with basic tie dye methods so that you can experiment and create your own designs.
Understand Your Patterns
First, it's important to know how patterns are made. Rubber bands are your friends, since they are used to hold fabric in place and create the patterns you see in most tie dye creations. When you wrap or fold the fabric, it's important that you keep the rubber bands as tight as possible. This will keep the dye from seeping and ruining your pattern.
Stripe Tie Dye Designs
If you want to produce a stripe-like design, fold the shirt a few times and use the bands to hold the folds together. The dye is then squirted along the folds and near the arms and sides. The dye's application location is as important as where and how you use the bands.
Sun Tie Dye Designs
If you want to produce a sun design, grab the center section of the fabric, wrap a band around the base, pull and wrap more bands until you have three or four bands along the piece of fabric. When you squirt the colors, squirt them in the sections.
Experiment With Color
You won't want to simply experiment with the patterns of tie dye. You should also experiment with the colors you use. You don't have to use every color in the rainbow. You can play around and use green and red if you want to give someone a tie dye gift for the holidays. Or, you can even play with black and white if you have a black shirt or sheet and want to tie dye with bleach. You can also produce creative tie dye pieces if you keep your eyes open and think about all of the tie dye options available to you.
 | Tie dye is a great way to make old things new again and once you learn the basic tie dye techniques and instructions, you can start updating unloved t-shirts, jersey knits, even bed linens. For best results, always use 100% natural fibers and perfect your technique or experiment with new ones on fabric remnants that you can afford to ruin. |
Learn how to tie dye shirts to dress up that old shirt in your closet. You can buy a new shirt to tie dye, or you can choose to tie dye shirts that have been forgotten in your dresser drawers. |
Tie dye patterns and instructions can help you dress up fabrics in your own home, to give as presents or even sell. |
Learning how to tie dye jeans is a great way to make your old pieces of clothing new again. |
When you tie dye, the tie dye folding techniques you use are important because the way you fold the fabric determines the kinds of patterns you'll have. |
