Name: juanita
Message: Hello: I need your help... My 4th grade kids want to "tie dye" and "batik".. or an aproximation. They want to write their name on t-shirts and have the name show (stay white) while the rest of the shirt is dyed. What could I use, that will be safe and relatively easy to achieve? I have done batik but with the hot beeswax .. I was thinking What else could I use? would writing with crayons work? Any suggestions?

The first and most important point is to use fiber reactive dye, which can be used at room temperature. Do not use all-purpose dye, because it requires you to simmer the t-shirts in very hot eater for a while. That is way too much trouble for twenty or thirty t-shirts, and the hot water is too dangerous to use around children.

Writing with crayons won't work unless you melt them. Personally, I'd rather keep hot melted wax far away from any children; it's just so dangerous, as far as burns are concerned, and there are also issues of possible lung damage from fumes from hot wax. Either you could have them write in pencil on the shirts, then take the shirts home and apply the wax over the names yourself with a tjanting - too much trouble for a whole class, I think! - or you need an alternative technique.

Water-based resists, as an alternative to wax, will not work if you immerse the fabric in dye. (I learned this the hard way, years ago.) The water-based resist rinses right out in ANY liquid you submerge it in. It works, however, if you brush the dye onto dry fabric. There are lots of choices, such as a product called Presist, but you can just use Elmer's Glue Gel. It will not hold up if you submerge the shirt in dye or soda ash, but it will work fine for painting or squirting dye on.

Normally, most tie-dyers presoak the shirts in soda ash, dissolved in water, before applying dye. You must avoid doing so, as it will wash off your water-soluble resist. You will want to apply your dye as a paint, so as not to wash away your Elmer's Glue Gel. Instead, you should mix the soda ash in directly with the dye (if you do this, throw away any dye you do not use on the day you mix it in, as it will go bad after a few hours).

Another alternative would be fabric paint, before dyeing. You can use opaque or transparent or metallic or even clear and colorless fabric paint, such as the colorless Jacquard Textile paint. The paint can never be removed, but it will keep dye from reaching the fabric, if applied heavily enough and then allowed to dry very thoroughly before dyeing.

Another alternative would be fabric crayons. You need 50% synthetic material, such as 50% cotton/50% polyester, or else the fabric crayons will wash out. (They are intended for use on polyester and other synthetics.) The names must be written BACKWARDS on paper with these crayons, then an adult irons them on, either before or after dyeing. The dye you tie-dye with will stick only to the natural fiber, such as cotton, so the colors will be paler than on 100% cotton shirts.

You could also use iron-ons that you create with a computer and an inkjet printer. Use opaque ones if you want the white to show. Use these *after* tie-dyeing. As with the fabric crayons, the design will come out backwards.

Or, you could thicken fiber reactive dye with a bit of sodium alginate (sold by dye suppliers), then have them paint their names on. You can use the standard recipes for tie-dyeing with fiber-reactive dye.

There are a lot of different possibilities.