Firstly you will need basic tools....
fabric (pretty obvious!)
dye (I used Dylon which I am assured is suitable for vegans and not tested on animals)
salt
a few plastic pots (I have saved containers and used the bottom of drinks bottles as you don't want to stain your best china!)
a microwave (not essential)
rubber gloves may be a good idea but I didn't bother!
You can try dying any colour aida but I think light colours would be best. White would be perfect but I didn't want to splash out on a lot of new fabric as I don't have any white, so I have been dying colours I think I won't use. For this piece I used a pale blue.
With the dying you do need to think in advance a bit, don't just dive straight in. If you want a lovely piece with several different colours you need to dye the lightest colours first, as you won't get them to hold over darker ones later.
So first step is to plan what you want to use, and pick out your colours....here is my planning sheet.....
Firstly wet your fabric, be prepared for some fraying as the sheer nature of washing it so much makes it fray, so you may loose a cm or so overall.
This is the piece I used.....
Then mix up your base colour. Ignore the sachet instructions (what do they know, right?!), it won't take nearly as long to dye as they recommend, unless you are using very dark fabrics which I wouldn't advise.
In a pot big enough to fit your fabric in use some warm water, add some dye and a splodge of salt. I have no idea on measurements, just guessed, but you don't need too much. Mix well with a spoon and make sure all the dye granules are gone and the liquid is one complete colour.
Plonk your fabric in and mix it about, make sure it is all covered and leave for a couple of minutes, 3-5 should be plenty. Lift the fabric out a bit with a spoon and see if the dye is taking if you are worried. Then microwave it for 30 seconds. I have no idea why you need to microwave and I don't think it is essential but I saw other people doing it online so it's what I did!
Tip it all out in the sink and rinse under the cold tap until the water runs clear. I left mine to soak then while I prepared the next colour.
I rinsed out my pot and used it again, but it would be more frugal once you get going to have several pots of different dyes made up. This was just a mini session for the blog so I tipped the yellow away and rinsed out the pot well and made up my next colour - pink.
You won't need as much of the next colour so again go easy on the amounts, I only made up a few tablespoons in the pot. Obviously use less dye and salt. Again make sure it is all dissolved.
Get your coloured fabric, and stuff it into a small pot, it needs to be really squished in there!
Using a small spoon dribble a little of the dye wherever you fancy, not too much! You can always add more but not take away! I dribbled some down the sides and a little on top. You could use a pipette but a spoon will do (who has pipettes?!). It will look something like this.....
Microwave for 20 seconds (again probably not essential) and beware it will be quite warm! Remove the fabric and rinse through with cold water 'til it runs clear. Tip away what was in the pot if it wasn't all absorbed by the fabric. This was mine after doing that....
I decided I wanted some more pink so did that process again, I picked out bits of the fabric that didn't have as much dye and scrunched it with those parts on the top so I could dribble the dye onto those. Repeated microwaving and rinsing and it looked like this.......
Then I tipped away the pink and made up a small pot of blue, went really easy on this one as I didn't want too much of the dark colour, and this is what it looked like when it was finished!!
I'm actually not happy with it as I feel the blue is too dark, so I stopped there!I wish I had chosen a lighter blue, but its an experiment and as I do more dying I will learn the strength of the shades.
You can rinse it through in warm water now to make sure it doesn't run if you wash it later, and it probably needs an iron!!
One thing to point out is this little dark bit....
This is where some neat granules got on to the fabric I had spilt and why you need to be careful with the dry powder.
These are some of the larger fabrics I made earlier in the week.....
They started off as baby pinks or greys....
I hope you find this useful and have fun creating your own funky fabrics!
