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Rubberbands and rinsing.

Do you soak the tee shirt in the soda ash solution before you tie the shirt or do you tie the shirt first and then soak in the fixer solution.

If you do your rinse in the washing machine with synthropol and cold water - do you leave the rubber bands on and only take them off when you do the final wash on the teeshirt?

Thanks.

Karen

By yentakaren at 2012-03-14 13:47 | Tie dyeing | login or register to post comments | previous forum topic | next forum topic

I soak the untied shirt in so

I soak the untied shirt in soda ash, wring dry, sometimes will put in washing machine on spin to get out excess . Sometimes depending on pattern I don't spin if a pattern is easier to fold wetter. After batching, I then hand rinse with cold water and the after initial dye comes off, remove bands and then put in very hot water with synthrapol in agitating washing machine for 45-60 seconds, spin out water, then refill washing machine with warm water and cool rinse, for two cycles.

Also with some patterns , I will let the tied shirt dry totally , this can take a few days, you would be surprised the difference dying a wet vs dry shirt. Try it!

By eperry at Thu, 2012-03-15 11:19 | login or register to post comments

Re: Rubberbands and rinsing

If I am doing a traditional tie-dye shirt, such as a swirl or accordion fold, I prefer to dampen my shirt with water, create the pattern, tie or band, then soak in soda ash. Then I squeeze out the excess soda ash and allow the shirt to air dry a little before dyeing. After the shirt has batched (wrapped in plastic overnight), I usually remove the ties or bands and hand rinse in cool water with a little synthrapol, then wash in the washing machine with synthrapol and hot water. If I'm only doing one shirt, I will hand wash to save on water. But in all cases, I remove the binding first to allow the water to rinse out the soda ash and excess dyes.
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By tiedyejudy at Thu, 2012-03-15 07:17 | login or register to post comments

tie dying and rinsing

yentakaren

Hi Judy,

Perfectly understandable (which is great for me)-- thanks for your response. I was rinsing and untying my dyed shirt out right away after dyeing (because at this point I'm really curious and didn't know to wait), but realized after reading a lot of the posts, I should have been waiting from 3-24 hours before rinsing. My shirts came out really nice (so I thought), but I guess they would have been deeper in color and better looking in the long run -- and that would have been even nicer. I never thought of wrapping in plastic wrap and waiting that way-- so that's a new concept to me. Because, in other posts on other websites (esp. for children), they say to wrap in plastic wrap and then to put in the microwave for 3 minutes and you don't have to wait at all. But I don't think they are color reactive dyes that they're working with. I think your way makes a lot more sense and I am going to try it. Thank you! Karen

By yentakaren at Thu, 2012-03-15 07:36 | login or register to post comments

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