I am having Tie Dye anxiety: HELP!

[3*is*magic]

So I decided to have a tye die birthday party for my four year old and ordered this kit from Dharma along with a bunch of T shirts. It took FOREVER to get here (just arrived today) and I just unloaded the supplies and I am now wondering what, exactly, I was thinking. I am completely overwhelmed and intimidated and there seems to not be directions with the kit.

Am I out of my mind??? This seemed to be a good activity for four year olds (with LOTS of adult supervision) but now I am wondering if I can handle it!

Talk me off the ledge, and while you're at it, tell me if I need to pre-wash the shirts...

[Ifluffedthree]

can you dye outside with Kool-aid instead.

working with soda ash and nitrogen in the dharma kit may not be a 4 year old friendly idea.

[andisunshine]

You can do it, mama! Yes, prewash the shirts. They dye better when wet. Go to the Dharma website, they should have a little instruction for group dying. I tie-dyed this summer for the first time and it took me a while to work up the courage to do it but once I did I was amazed at how simple it is. One thing I recommend, not having dyed before, is to thoroughly saturate the shirts with dye when applying. Work the tip of your squirt bottle deep into the folds. That way you don't have a ton of white like I did when I was done. And make sure everyone wears gloves. It would be best to have a baggie for each shirt to keep them separate while they are setting.
The nice thing about tie-dying is that much of the preparation can be done before the people arrive. Good luck and have fun!

[MomToKandE]

OK, we did a tie dye party with the same kit on labor day weekend. The directions stink. They're buried in the catalog but they're also on the website. http://www.dharmatrading.com/tie-dye/instructions.html

The big thing that confused me was the chemicals. The soda ash gets mixed with water for a presoak. The urea goes in the bottles with the color dye. The amounts are in the directions.

The turquoise blue is 4 tsp of dye the other 2 colors are 2 tsp of dye based on the chart in the front of the catalog. The bottles hold a bit less than 8 oz so be prepared with some glass measuring cups to mix and hold the extra until you're ready for it.

The kit does not include the sodium alginate thickener that the directions mentioned.

We had some 4 year olds and some older kids (extended family party). The adults did all of the mixing and presoaking. The older kids tied their own pieces but the adults tied for the little ones.

We wet the items in plain water before tieing. Then toss into the bucket with soda ash for 5-15 minutes. Then let the kids squirt die. Like the pp said be sure to get it down into the folds. When you're done put it in a zip-lock bag until the next day.

The colors will look muddy in the bag but don't be alarmed, when you wash the excess dye out they'll look great.

I used the detergent that came with the kit but the other people went home with their stuff still in bags and washed with their regular detergent. Hope this helps!

[3*is*magic]

Originally Posted by MomToKandE

OK, we did a tie dye party with the same kit on labor day weekend. The directions stink. They're buried in the catalog but they're also on the website. http://www.dharmatrading.com/tie-dye/instructions.html

The big thing that confused me was the chemicals. The soda ash gets mixed with water for a presoak. The urea goes in the bottles with the color dye. The amounts are in the directions.

The turquoise blue is 4 tsp of dye the other 2 colors are 2 tsp of dye based on the chart in the front of the catalog. The bottles hold a bit less than 8 oz so be prepared with some glass measuring cups to mix and hold the extra until you're ready for it.

The kit does not include the sodium alginate thickener that the directions mentioned.

We had some 4 year olds and some older kids (extended family party). The adults did all of the mixing and presoaking. The older kids tied their own pieces but the adults tied for the little ones.

We wet the items in plain water before tieing. Then toss into the bucket with soda ash for 5-15 minutes. Then let the kids squirt die. Like the pp said be sure to get it down into the folds. When you're done put it in a zip-lock bag until the next day.

The colors will look muddy in the bag but don't be alarmed, when you wash the excess dye out they'll look great.

I used the detergent that came with the kit but the other people went home with their stuff still in bags and washed with their regular detergent. Hope this helps!

Thank you. You make it sound MUCH easier than it looks.

The only part I am reticent about is sending the shirts home with people to wash out on their own. I am afraid that people will be nervous about sticking the shirt in their washers to rinse out the dye. Especially because I have several sibling sets coming, some with 3 to a family. I am afraid that people will be annoyed about having to finish the process themselves.

I also feel kind of bad that the kids won't be able to untie their shirts at the party to get a preview of their efforts. I guess I maybe bit off more than I chew...

I think I'll call one of the moms to ask her what her thoughts are. I COULD just do plain old Rit dye or Kool Aid as a PP mentioned. That might be a bit more manageable. I think I am mostly a little upset because it took Dharma SO LONG to get the stuff to me, all the shirts I ordered from them seem to run WAY SMALL (I am going out tonight to by new ones) AND I added green and orange dyes to the order for a few extra colors, and they sent green and RED instead. I really wanted orange. For me .

*sigh*

[erynw]

I recently went to a tie dye party and the only thing I can add (we didn't use the same Dharma kit that you have,mind you) is to rinse the shirts before washing them. I rinsed mine for quite some time in the bathtub until the water ran clear and then washed them in hot water and hung to dry (these were the instructors our party organizer found on the internet).

Good luck! Ours turned out so great...I am hooked and am on the look out for more clothes to dye!

[jen in co]

Originally Posted by 3*is*magic

The only part I am reticent about is sending the shirts home with people to wash out on their own. I am afraid that people will be nervous about sticking the shirt in their washers to rinse out the dye. Especially because I have several sibling sets coming, some with 3 to a family. I am afraid that people will be annoyed about having to finish the process themselves.

I'm doing a tie dye party for my 6 year old with this kit on Sunday. I made up a Tie Dye Care Sheet (based largely on the instructions from the Dharma site) that I plan to include with the take home bag. I'm planning to put each child's dyed shirt in a quart sized ziploc and then that bag, a copy of the instructions, a pair of gloves, and a small bottle containing some of the Synthrapol (inside it's own ziploc) all will go inside a gallon ziploc.

I'd be happy to email you a PDF of the Tie Dye care sheet if you want it. Just send me an email at jenmcadams @ yahoo . com (no spaces).

I tried to make light of the fact that I'm sending the kids home with something that will require more work by calling it "the part favor that keeps on giving"

[ecoteat]

You can mix orange! You can even do it right on the shirt by squirting yellow and a little red in the same area. Or mix the dye in a seperate bottle--the shade or orange will be a surprise, though. But wait--does it SAY red or does the powder just LOOK red? Orange dye powder is red. In fact, the mixed dye looks pretty red too, but turns out orange when the shirt is done.

As far as sending wet shirts home, your guests will love unwrapping the shirts later. It is so much fun to see how they came out! I'd send them home in gallon zip-lock bags with instructions: after soaking overnight, rinse shirt in running cold water (with gloves!--actually, maybe you should include a pair to take home) until most of the excess dye has rinsed off. Then wash in the washing machine on hot (with no other clothes, but their new tie-dyes can go together) and dry (dryer or hung are both fine. I tend to think the dryer helps set the dye, but I'm not sure if that's true).

On your end, have everything premixed, shirts pre-soaked, and lots of gloves and rubber bands.

You can do this! Don't do Rit or Kool-aid; it will be fun at the party, but they'll end up with pale shirts that will fade and not get worn. Procion dyes are excellent and make beautiful shirts. Totally worth the extra effort. You'll see--when you unwrap and rinse your first shirt you'll be amazed.

jen in co, we cross posted--and you brought up a good point. I'd send home some Synthrapol for that first wash too. That really helps permanently set the dye and get rid of the last little bits of excess. After washing in that, the shirts will never bleed.

[3*is*magic]

Thank you all so much for all that info. You really helped me see how it can be manageable.

I was able to get better shirts, and they're in the wash right now.

I'll let you know what I end up doing tomorrow. Even if I do go the rit/kool aid route, I plan to use the Dharma kit at some point. I'm just not sure if I feel ok about using it for the first time tomorrow with the all kids. We'll see. I have a feeling that when my 5.5 year old sees how much fun tie dyeing is, she'll want to have a tie dye party for her birthday, too . There will probably be a lot of tie dyeing in our future!

You guys are awesome. Really, really awesome.

Oh, and to answer the question that a PP had about the colors - they did send the wrong dye. I double checked the names and numbers. I am sure someone just got distracted and packed it wrong.

[MomToKandE]

If you have old sheets around you could tie dye red and green and then make fabric bags for Christmas gifts if you sew. I used our leftover dye to dye sheets like this and was kicking myself for not thinking to order red and green.

[andisunshine]

I would really, really advise against using RIT or Koolaid for tie-dying cotton. I have used RIT and it never sets permanently. You will have a lot of color bleeding. I finally threw out the diapers I dyed with RIT because they never stopped bleeding. Koolaid just stains, it is not recommended for dying unless the fiber is silk or wool, or some type of protein.

I hope everything goes well!

[flapjack]

If you've lost confidence in tie-dying, do not use koolaid. Go with fabric paints instead. I'd feel embarrassed helping kids tie-dye a t-shirt that I knew would fade.

[3*is*magic]

Thank you all so, so much for all the input and advice. The party went great, but I was too chicken to use the Dharma kit, so we went with Rit dye. I know it will fade and that the colors will not be a vibrant, BUT it was pouring rain on the day of the party, and I just couldn't fathom 10 4 year olds with squirt bottles of dye in my dining room.

We did three colors (orange, bright pink and green). The kids tied their own shirts and then the adults dropped them into the hot water and dye filled buckets. I doubled the amount of dye used to hopefully up our chances of having the colors stay vibrant longer. When we untied the shirts, they looked great! There's a pic of one on my blog (link in my siggy) for anyone who is interested.

I washed four of them yesterday, and they faded a little, but not too much. I know they won't look this good forever, but the kids had a blast.

Again, thank you for the advice about the Dharma kit. I have printed this thread and stuck it in the kit for future reference. I might just have a grown-up tie dye party this fall .