Tie~Dye tee shirts meet heat transfer vinyl.

Happy Hump Day Bloggers,

Today I am sharing with you all the field day tee~shirts I did for my daughters second grade class. Let me start off by saying that this was a science project indeed. Word to the wise, don't use rit dye because it fades no matter what you do. Ok, so this is definitely not a last minute type of deal. First off, I had to go back to the drawing board once the shirts I dyed with the rit dye didn't turn out in color as rich and deep as I had hoped. However, I did keep all of those shirts and now that I have looked at them longer, they have grown on me, lol.

A good friend of mines told me I needed to wash the shirts first and omit fabric softer, then soak them in soda ash for at least 20-25 minutes, next step was to mix the dye. She suggested I use procion dye. I found this dye fairly reasonable priced on amazon. Along with the dye I needed to purchase urea and mix it with the dye. This agent helped the color bond with the fabric. After I mixed the dye I put rubber bands on the shirts. I found tons of designs just by googling tie dyed shirts. The next step is the best part. Dying the shirts! Yeah! Be sure to put on gloves and a apron or something to protect your clothes. Once you have colored the shirts using the dye, cover them in a plastic bag for at least 24 hours. I allowed mines to soak for 48 hours covered. After that I allowed them to dry completely uncovered for a day. The final steps are to rinse the shirts completely, wash, dry and then they are good to go.

Once this process was over I was very pleased with how well the shirts looked and that the color did not fade. However, being the crafter that I am, I decided they needed a little something extra. So guess what I did? Yep, I ordered some heat transfer/tee shirt vinyl. Ordered it from a vendor on ebay and it took over a week arriving. Hence the reason why I was up so late last night, finishing the shirts.

Altogether I tie-dyed and put vinyl lettering on 26 tee~shirts. Field day is today and I am totally excited. I hope the kids and parents like the tee shirts.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today and don't forget to leave a comment.

Sharondalyn

Materials

Pooh Font

Shirt dyed with the procion dye. This is the final product.

Shirt dyed with rit dye. They grew on me.

Shirt I dyed using tulip dye to wear to my son's tournament baseball games.

This shirt faded after washing but still was fun to do. Me and some other moms did them at baseball while the kids were practicing.