Tie dyed t shirts using clips and bendy rods

I'm always looking for ways to create interesting patterns on my hand dyed children's t shirt.

Normally I use string to tie the fabric up but I had the idea that metal clips and bendy foam hair curler rods might work. I wasn't sure if they would but decided to give it a go using a Dylon Tulip red.

Here is one of the white cotton t shirts, next to the hand dye and the container I use for making the dye bath, with the metal clips holding the fabric fold together.

The bendy rods don't clamp the fabric down but are good at holding it in place, so I also used the metal clips with them.

This is the dye bath, with the 250g of salt that is used to fix the dye to the fabric.

The colour looks lovely and vibrant

The fabric going in, ready to be mixed for 15 minutes

Here it is after a further 45 mins in the dye

I undid the ties and then rinsed the t shirts in cold water twice and then through the machine on a rinse wash, followed by a quick wash in non bio skin sensitive washing powder.

Here are the finished t shirts. I really like the designs on them but hoped the colour would be much redder.

Sometimes I find that the fabric picks up a dot, a dark spot and I never know where this comes from, sometimes the dye powers create speckles as well. I'm always trying to ensure that doesn't happen but sometimes it just does. You can see the small spot on this t shirt.

Here is the back view of the t shirts. So, I am happy that the tie dye effect is looking great, very striking.

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I've got some other Dylon colours to work with and will be blogging about them soon.