Saturday, July 20, 2013

New T-Shirts with Ice Resist Dyeing!

This is the set up I use both for my snow dyeing and for the ice dyeing.  The rack is about 12 inches by 24 inches and I think I got it at Walmart or Target.  I would like to find some cheaper ones but it fits nicely over this plastic box.  There is one long sleeved and one short sleeved tshirt here.  The long sleeved one was a double knit and the short sleeved one just a single knit.

After all the ice had melted, I checked the progress and discovered a few very white areas where the dye hadn't gotten to so I shifted things around, added more ice chips and dye powder on top.  This is what it looks like with the dye just sitting there on top of the ice.  You may have to click on it to see it bigger.

This was the view really before the previous picture.  There is still some ice on top but the colors are all gone so at this point, I just remove the ice as all it will do at this point is dilute the dyes.  It was at this time, that I discovered the white spots.  After I remove the ice, I plop it into the microwave for about 8 minutes.

This is the long sleeved tshirt which was dyed again with the mix of Basic Brown and Black 604 from ProChem.

I am very happy with this shirt.  I have a short sleeved one very much like it.

Today I decided to take a couple of yellow tshirts (also from KMart Basic Editions) and overdye them with mostly a brown with just a smidgen of the black from above.  Got some nice taupes in these two t-shirts!  I like the effect you get with the ice.

This is the second of the yellow t-shirts.  I realized after I saw them finished that my two favorite t-shirts also used the yellow shirts as the base!  They don't get quite as dark as the white ones.  Hard to believe they were yellow to begin with!

2 comments:

Sharon said...

Hi:
Did you wet your t-shirts first, or were they dry when you layered the ice on them?
I'd love to try this. Your's turned out great!
Sharon

Beth Brandkamp said...

I always soak my tshirts in a soda ash solution. I do that with all ice dyed projects.