How do you dye Prefolds?

[Annette&Aden]

I'm so curious now about these dyed colorful prefolds! I already have 24 though so I certainly don't need anymore, especially since my son mostly wears fitteds or AIOs. How would I dye them myself? Can I do it with Rit or is that unsafe for his bottom or the diaper? Oh yeah, and mine are unbleached, if that makes any difference.

Thanks in advance!

[Cenae]

You can dye them yourself using fiber reactive dyes. I heard dylon at wal mart works well, so I just did half a dozen last night. They look great, I've got them going in the wash right now. You can also look in your phone book to see if you have any professional dyers in your area, I had a couple done this way, and they look better than I could have done.

[elfinbaby]

Go to sewing and crafts board and search dyed prefolds. I found all the info I needed there - including a post by the mama of Tie Dyed Dreams I believe. Dharmatrading.com is where I started and used their instructions.

[Annette&Aden]

oh swiss cheese, that looks like a lotta work! Maybe I will see if I can send them in to a WAHM to do them for me.

[bluey]

Well you could always throw in a burgundy towel. I did last night by accident and now all the dipes are pink. :LOL good thing it was a small load!!!

[Basylica]

Rainbow rock dyes found at walmart are AWSOME.
I did 12 infant cpfs with the standard "tye dye" kit. it comes with soda ash and 3 dyes (red, yellow, blue)

I did all 12 and had dye leftover!

What you do is soak in soda ash (20 min I think)
then what *I* did was put approx 1c of water in a pyrex flat baking dish, then add dye until it was the color I desired. (combined colors too)
Make absolutely sure the dye is well incorperated into the water though, to make the dyes take evenly~! and make sure there are no little tiny chunks of dye in the batch.

Then I would soak and massage a CPF in the dye, loosly squeeze out excess so it wouldn't drip, put into a large ziplock (1 gal) and let sit for 8hrs.
Wash wash wash wash and wash some more.

I got a RAINBOW of lovely colors.
a reddish purple, a blueish purple, lime green, bright orange, bright lemon yellow, red, 4 shades of blue..etc.

The ammt of dye you add to the water changes the shade etc.
I did a light sky blue by using alot of water and just a couple drops of blue, and a very deep indigo blue by using ALOT of blue dye (looked almost black!)

It was totally fun~!
I've been thinking about buying MORE cpfs just to dye!
I need to do premiums now though, cause my guy is too big for infants..it's just too bad I use mainly pockets...I LOVE dying dipes so very much

The kit was roughly 10bucks, and you can get packages of dye in diff colors for like 2-3 I think (but they make tons more)
It was way easy to mix up the dyes in the squirt bottles they provided (fill to top with cold water and shake) and then just drip in the ammt of dye you wanted.

My favs ended up being the BRIGHT colors I did...the orange, dk blue, lemon yellow, lime green..etc. which of course took more dye. and normally I prefer more muted colors. LOL.

I can post pics of the results if you would like...i'd just need to find them (the pics I mean)

[NowOrNever]

Oh, watch out...dying can be addictive! Ask me how I know.

[Annette&Aden]

Shan, thank you!

that sounds so easy and fun!

I'm totally doing this! Must go to Wal-Mart!!!!!

[meco]

I want to these dyes--I have to go to Sprawl-Mart for some SportWash so I should try this What section is it in?

[Debsy]

Ohhh I was just contemplating on whether to have someone do it or do it myself... I'm still on the fence as I just picked up 34 premium cpf's and I would like to have half tie dyed and the other half solid colors, I'm so torn!

[gingerlane]

Any tips for tie-dying them?

[Boobiemama]

I dont think it would be worth it to send them to someone to dye, the shipping on prefolds is so high....

[Basylica]

I tried to tye dye one of them, but since CPFs are so thick...it was hard
I folded and twisted the cpf lengthwise and rubberbanded it into 6 sections, and did 2 blue, 2 red, 2 yellow. the result was somewhat tyedye and stripy...but honestly I liked the solids best.
Tyedying premium cpfs is hard, because you can't do the standard tye...I bet 4x6x4s would be easier though.

they are in the fabric section, with the "crafts" stuff, atleast in my walmart...but they were phasing the dye out of some walmarts, so if you can't find it...you can try hobbylobby/michaels...etc. but I found it no trouble

[JennInSeattle]

Moved to Sewing and Crafts