Sunday, May 30, 2010

How to dye the Material

How to dye the material:

Follow the directions on the bottle or box of your Rit dye. But this is how I did it. Place a 12 quart sauce kettle in your basement sink and fill about 2/3 to ¾ full with hot tap water. Add ½ cup or so of salt, a tablespoon of laundry detergent as a surfactant. A surfactant allows the dye to flow into the smaller fibers or pores of the fabric better. Add your powder or liquid dye. Rit has more colors of dye than a rainbow has and some can be mixed such as greens. Immerse your shirts in the dye in the dye, one by one. Wearing your rubber gloves gently move them around so that they soak thoroughly. The more garments you add the less the color intensity of the color will be by the end. You won’t see much difference in the water color but will notice on the garments.

When the garments are removed the dye can be set with a cup or so of vinegar, in a basin of water.

At this point I like to hang them up to dry. They will drip dye so put down a tarp to protect floor.

When they dry I wash them in the clothes washer by themselves, with a minimal amount of detergent.

For the T-shirts I used black Dye. The process does tend to shrink them so with T-shirts I bought them one size bigger than I usually wear.

I like these T-Shirts better than a plain white T-shirt. They are artistic and an impression of myself. I was going for the effect of the strong thug dock men type from Batman and Robin episodes when I picked this pattern.
I have added a link to a small store where you will find products relavent to this project.
Copyright 2010 Thomas Paul Murphy

Originally published at: http://fashion-thomas.blogspot.com/

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Welcome to my Blogs. My name is Thomas Murphy and I love the forest and wildlife areas of Wisconsin and would like to share my thoughts and the pictures I have taken of the natural areas of Wisconsin. Come share in my collection of what I feel to some of the finest scenes and images of the forests, lakes, rivers and marshes that Wisconsin has to offer. I like to go to pristine and secluded areas where nature resides quietly and I feel the resulting “lost” images are profoundly unique. I am usually “in the moment” when I take these pictures. When I say in the moment I mean a sense of excitement often precedes what my eye captures through the camera. I never stage these shots but seem to be in the right place and time when I shoot them. And when I transfer them from my camera and view them on my computer screen I realize a sense of surrealism that resonates with me yet again to the time they were taken and exemplify the beauty of nature. Please peruse my sites and experience the beauty of being there as I did. WWW.ThomasMurphy.lifepics.com