How was this tie-dyed t-shirt made?

Name: Eric

—ADVERTISEMENTS—

Advanced Tie Dye Techniques: Making Shapes and Mandalas

by True Tie Dye

Tie Dye Crash Course - Stars

by Phat Dyes

How to Tie-dye Stars: Book 2 of the Tie-Dye Art Series

by Richard W. Rogers

Country or region: Missouri

Message: Hey, I was just curious about how the shirt below was made... I can't find the name of the technique or directions on how to make one. Any help with just a finger in the right direction would be great.

This is a mandala or star design, centered right under the arm on one side.

The shirt was folded in half, then into sixteens, in such a way that all of the edges are exposed, rather then having the shirt wrapped around itself again and again, which would prevent the color from being equally intense on all sides. The narrow triangular shape that results then has the string tied around it at different angles to create the triangular points in the design.

The string, probably artificial sinew, has been pulled very tight to prevent the dye from reaching the shirt, leaving the white lines that you can see. The inner half of the tied shirt was dyed with alternating yellow, red, and green, with a little black which may have been applied intentionally or may have been a by-product of the dye applied for the background. The background, which was the half of the tied shirt away from the center of the tie, was dyed intensely black.

The dye used was certainly a fiber reactive dye (not an all-purpose dye such as Rit!), probably Procion MX dye, used with soda ash as the fixative, on a 100% cotton shirt.

Richard W. Rogers, owner of Dyed in Vermont, has other side-star t-shirts for sale. For example, look at this one:

Rainbow side-star t-shirt from tie-dyes.com

He has also written and published a clearly-illustrated book with full details on how to dye stars and mandalas. See "How to Tie-dye Stars: Book 2 of the Tie-Dye Art Series" [Amazon link]. (Don't bother looking for "Book 1", because this is the first book in the series to be written.)

There are also excellent videos available on how to tie-dye stars, mandalas, and lotuses. Look for the DVD, "Advanced Tie Dye Techniques: Making Shapes and Mandalas", by Tom Rolofson and Martine Purdy, and Phat Dyes's DVD "Tie Dye Crash Course - Stars". [Also Amazon links.] Another excellent source for tie-dyeing tutorials is the Facebook group "Addicted to TIE DYING".

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Posted: Thursday - September 20, 2012 at 10:19 AM

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How was this tie-dyed t-shirt made?

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