Tie Dye - How soon can you untie? Or how long can you leave...

[gillybean2]

I am planning on doing some tie dying with a group of children at school at a class I hold once a week for an hour.

The tie dye instructions I have says to tie the damp cloth, then dip in dye and place in a plastic bag over night.

The problem with that is that we won't be able to do anything else to it for a week.

I was hoping we could untie it the same day (ie after 30 mins, assuming will take 30 mins to tie and dip). Anyone give me some advice on how soon after dipping it's ok to untie? And should we rinse it before we untie?

If I really do have to leave it overnight is it ok to rinse and 'dry' it tied? I really want the children to untie it themselves, but don't want to leave damp t-shirts in a plastic bag for a week obviously!

Any advice gratefully received!
Thanks
Gilly

BUMP - Anyone know anything about tie dye out there? Please!

maybe this might help http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/tiedye/a/041601a_3.htm

I do not know why I can't post links - but hope that helps

hi, thanks for that link.

I had already found that website but unfortunately it says 'as per the dye instructions' and the instructions on the dye packet are for getting a full even colour, which I'm not too worried about in this case.

The dye I have is dylon warm water (40 degree) non machine dye. ie mix it in warm water in a bucket and dip your fabric in. I emailed dylon who said to dip fabric and put in a plastic bag over night. This time scale isn't practicle for what I need.

I just need the dye to set resonably well in the shortest time possible really which will give a good tie dye result.

I was hoping for someone with experience of using the dyes for tie dying who could enlighten me as to whether you could untie it before leaving it overnight or whether you had to wait till you had rinsed to untie.

Or failing that if it was reasonable to
leave it tied while it dried so the children could untie themselves the following week.

I remember someone on here did tie dying for a craft party a while ago, so I'm hopping it can be done in a shorter period of time.

Anyone got experence of tie dying who can give me some help on the timescale or recommend a different die that can be used which has a shorter time scale?

Thanks
Gilly

I have always used machine dye but leave things to dry before untying so doing it over 2 weeks sounds fine. It will build up the excitement too!