Soak the sweatshirt in water and ring it out so it’s damp and not dripping.
White Cotton Sweatshirt, Water
Shape the sweatshirt by wrapping, scrunching, folding, and/or twisting it into your desired pattern.
Wrap rubber bands around it to secure.
Rubber Bands
Prepare the Soda Ash Mixture and Sweatshirt for Tie Dye
If your tie dye kit is a one step tie dye kit such as Tulip One Step Tie Dye Kits, you don’t need to do this section.However if your tie dye kit uses soda ash, mix 1 cup of soda ash into a gallon of warm water. Stir it up until the soda ash dissolves.
Place the wrapped up sweatshirt in the soda ash mixture and soak it for at least 20 minutes.
Mix the Tie Dye from the Tie Dye Kit
Add warm water to the bottles up to a line marked on the bottle of dye powder of the tie dye kit.
Tie Dye Kit or Tie-Dye Dye and Soda Ash
Shake the bottles so that the dye powder dissolves. Check the bottom of the bottles to make sure all the powder is mixed in.
Repeat the process for all of the colors of tie dye.
Add Dye to the Sweatshirt
Before you start tie-dyeing the sweatshirt, put on gloves and place plastic wrap on the table.
Latex Gloves, Plastic Wrap
Start with the lightest color of dye (in my case it was yellow) and it to different parts of the sweatshirt. Make sure to get both sides.
Check in between the layers and folds and make sure it’s not all completely white. Stick the bottle of dye between the layers and squeeze out the dye.
Add the next color of dye.
Continue adding dye one color at a time until the sweatshirt is covered in dye where you want it.
Use paper towels to wipe up the dye that’s on the plastic in between the colors
Paper Towels
Pick up the plastic wrap off the table and carefully wrap it around the tie dyed sweatshirt. Leave it for 12-24 hours so the tie dye can set.
Rinse the Dye off the Tie Dye Sweatshirt
While still tied, rinse the newly tie dyed sweatshirt under warm water.
As the initial dye rinses out you can start taking off the rubber bands. You can either remove them to save them or you can also cut them off to make it easy.Then continue to rinse the sweatshirt under water until the water starts to run clear.
Throw the sweatshirt into the washing machine to finish removing any extra dye. Then run it through the dryer and your tie dye sweatshirt is ready to wear!
Keyword Cotton, Jacquard, Rainbow, Rainbow Tie Dye, Spiral, Sweatshirt, Tie Dye, Tie Dye Kit