Whilst Goldfinger may have had to wait a long time for Mr Bond to tie dye anything (that man never has any downtime; plus I'm not sure it sits so well with the suave look) I have been rather keen on dying, bleaching, ripping, cutting, and studding my clothes as of late. It's mainly because I've been craving a fresh look without the budget to match, but also it's a whole lot of good clean fun.
So a request from Lois at Carrot Top couldn't have come at a better time: Dirty Fresh Laundry wanted to send me a brand new t-shirt, then I was to customise it in any which way I could. YES. Basically a licence to go crazy.
When it arrived it looked like this:
The t-shirt is of an excellent quality, totally opaque, and the print is the sort that will age pleasingly. Just a heads up on sizing: I'm a 10-12 on top and this is a men's small. I ordered in that size as I thought I'd have a little extra fabric to play with but it's quite fitted, so just a warning for when you order.
First things first - protect your bath, or wherever you choose to tie dye. I don't want any mums or landlords after my guts! The binbag in my bath was fairly futile but it did help a little, and whenever I got dye on the porcelain, floor, or anywhere, I cleaned it up straight away - you just don't know how it will stain, and you're better safe than sorry, no?
After that I prepared my t-shirt. I followed Shannon's advice - holding the tee in the middle, spin it around so it's like a coil. Tie bands or string around to keep in place. The tighter you tie, the more white space will be left.
You can be as creative as you like with this - when researching tie dyes I found
this page and loved all the different dye shapes, so since my boyfriend has been nagging for a tie dye tee for a while, I decided to experiment a little with the shape of his.
Now it's time to make the dye. Glove up! Again, the dye might stain your skin, or worse - you might be allergic to it. Be careful.
I could only find Dylon machine wash dyes (is it me or are dyes harder to find now? In my teens I'm sure I could pick them up from the supermarket or my local chemist. Anyway, I digress) in Flamingo Pink and Ocean Blue, so I made them up in bottles with sports lids (another great tip from
Shannon). I only had one sports lid bottle so carved a hole in a normal lid. Again, be careful! I used one part salt, one part dye, and four parts warm water.
Then I attacked my tees with the dyes. I began gingerly but ended up throwing the two full bottles over two t-shirts. I unravelled them to check how I was doing - the long, thin patterned one looked amazing how it was, but the spiral one needed a bit more colour. I opened it out and added more colour to suit.
Leave your tee for at least an hour. I left mine all afternoon, conscious of the fact I'd used machine washing dye! I don't have any space in my flat to hang them - especially due to our cream carpet - so placed them in buckets. Use this time to clean the bathroom, think of outfits to wear with your tee, have a brew, daydream about Michael Fassbender.. you get the picture. Then rinse, using a little bit of fabric washing powder or liquid.
