OK. Tie dye. I get one shot at this - heeeelp

[stealthsquiggle]

For reasons which made perfect sense at the time, I am planning to tie die aprons for my DD's party. I am going for this sort of effect. I have one of these kits, and I get the whole roll it up, fasten with elastic bands, apply dye plan.

But here is where I get lost. I have pre washed the aprons, and have written names on the plain aprons with this stuff. The dye instructions say the fabric needs to be damp. So how do I get it damp without washing out the dye resist stuff, and do I do it before or after rolling them up?

Normally I would do trial and error, but having read the instructions on the dye pack, the dyes only last 45 mins once you have mixed them up - which makes this a one shot deal, and I am in need of the collective wisdom of MN to make sure I don't stuff it up.

wow they look fab stealth!
I think the colours have taken really well.

for future reference (or others considering it):
I used to do a lot of proper batik with wax. if you use wax as dye resist you need to make sure it takes properly on the fabric. It has to soak down into the fabric, not just sit on the surface. When I was doing batik, we often did the back as well as the front, if the wax hadn't soaked in well. The temperature of the wax makes a big difference, cold wax sits on the surface of the fabric and warm wax soaks in.
The stuff you used is wax based, so you need to make sure it has soaked in.

Steppemum - I was trying to find a balance between getting enough on for it to soak through without it running so that the letters were illegible. The fact that none of them worked suggests that, at the very least, the instructions are not very good.

Never mind. Puffy fabric paint arrives tomorrow (hopefully).

They look great :)

Actually, I think they'll look better with the names added on - if the resist had worked, it might have detracted from the tie dye pattern.

wax is quite hard to work with as too warm it is too runny and then illegible.

But I think your aprons look amazing and will look fab with the puffy fabric paint

Oh stealth they are fantastic!!

Im really laughing that you had to wait for dd to go out to put all them out.

they look fabulous. I want one of those. Dd is always on at me to do the spiral t-shirt tie-dyes but I keep putting it off.

DW - just to amuse you further - there was no reason for them to be on the link exchange other than to have their photo taken - they had already been washed, dried and ironed - they were only out there for 5 minutes although I would have got better photos if I had left them there as it is sunny now

link exchange
Lone except

(phone is having nearly as productive a day as I am)

lone?

line

I give up

they look wonderful all on the line...like psychedelic bunting

I would love one, maybe you could set up a business selling them!

sense of scale needed - they are quite small (should just about fit DD, who is almost 7 but ridiculously tall)

They look great. Did it use the whole kit and how many mls did it include? Planning to do tie dye for ~10 age 10-11 size t-shirts. Hope they come out as well as yours!

3Birthdays - the kit said it would do 24 the shirts and I think it would have done. I had 28 aprons (including 4 adult sized ones) and 4 lumps of fabric which I may or may not have time to turn into bunting. I did use the whole kit, but I could have made it go a little bit further.

the shirts?!

T shirts.

They are brilliant. I love them, so glad they worked out well and puffy names will look ace, I agree with soupdragon.