Basic guide – Chandye
We’ll be using a plain cotton shirt.
It is the most common
Now fabric can be anything you want.
A shirt is the most common, followed by tapestries.
There is a difference between dyeing 1 layer pieces of fabric and dyeing a shirt which is 2 layers of fabric.
Clothing which is made from multiple pieces of fabric.
Clothing is very diverse
You can make tie-dye to embellish clothing.
You can use it to decorate (make tapestries to decorate your home)
The process of tie-dye is to apply a pattern to a fabric.
Pattern is the shape, size, appearance, result of tie-dye.
The pattern is the result of the tie-dye.
The appearance of the piece after its been 1) Tied and 2) dyed.
For example, a shirt on which you can see colors in the shape of a spiral is said to adorn a ”spiral” pattern.
Patterns often take the name of the closest ressembling thing to what the actual pattern looks like, but not always.
The process of tie-dyeing is to impart a pattern on a piece of fabric.
What are we trying to accomplish really? We want to color let’s say a shirt. Imagine that the shirt is already tie-dyed. The way the dye sets on the shirt is called the tie-dye pattern.
The pattern is composed of and not limited to : colors; their use, dispersion, hue, colorfulness.
Also the physical aspect, as in the shape or shapes, the repetition of colors, the main features,
We call them patterns because they can be recorded and repeated with the exact same steps as the original pattern.
We recommend everyone takes notes of every tie-dye creation. Video is even better.
Help us build the most comprehensive guide on tie-dye patterns.
Pattern is the result of a whole process called tie-dye.
The process of tie-dyeing can be resumed in this way :
A) Preparation
B) Tying
C) Dyeing
D) Finition
The process of tie-dye as a whole can be divided into multiple steps and operations:
A) Process
1) Preparation
Preparing your work space and the supplies you’ll be using.
Preparation of the fabric itself (Inspecting, washing, drying, SOAKING(?))
The preparation of the dyes (Choosing what colors + how to make those colors by mixing)
Preparing any other materials or tools you’ll be using.
(Gloves, pipette, setup a work surface/environment)
Supplies
Fiber-reactive dyes
Cotton shirt
Washing soda
Water
Fabric
Fabric is made of a collection of interlaced fibers.
The most useful fabrics for us are made out of natural fibers.
Cotton is the most common and affordable natural fiber.
Most of our work will be done using cotton fabric.
Fabric can come in all shapes and sizes.
Fabric varies in size and composition.
Dye
Get your Procion dye ready
Washing soda
2) Tying
The way you can fold, bind, restrain, pleat, crumple, etcetcetc the fabric.
There’s a near-infinite number of ways to fold a piece of fabric.
If you think about the complexity, the number of individual strands of fibers. And all the randomness and chaos.
There are a number of recorded folds; spiral, pleat,
There’s also a variety of factors to consider while tying.
The humidity of the fabric. (A slightly damp fabric you can fold quite easily, it stick to itself and the added weight helps it stay in place. A dry fabric is very difficult to fold.)
Wether you do it by hand or with tools.
Different techniques have a variety of interesting effects and results.
Folding serves multiple different purposes. It resists the dye. Taut, compressed fabric does not accept
The tying is mainly folding with optional binding by using elastic bands, string, or sinew. Compressing can be accomplished any number of ways. You can use accessories to change the capacity of the fabric to accept the dye. You can compress with forms or you can temporarily encompass the fibers in wax to prevent dye from reaching specific parts of the piece.
You can tightly wrap the fabric around a pole.
It guide the dye along its creases and pleats. As gravity pulls the dye down, it can slide against the ridges. Especially true for liquid and ice-dyeing.
3) Dyeing
The type of dye we use is fiber-reactive dyes.
It is a recent invention, became commercially available in the 1950’s.
The biggest advantages of this all-star dye.
It can dye even at room temperatures, it colors permanently, it is safe to use.
Dye itself : drop of a certain size. Can drip or splash or irrigate.
Can let the dye diffuse through the fibers.
Can obstruct the diffusion.
Can guide the diffusion.
Add additives to the dyed water by way of alginate or other viscosity enhancers.
Entire books could be written talking about wether to let the dye create the pattern by itself or wether we should guide the dye and thus the pattern.
Might be ever more ways to dye than to tie. lmao
The way you make the dye interact with the fabric. The actual coloring of the piece. It refers to the way you apply the dye, for example with a bottle. The quantity of dye, its colors, its penetration and coverage.
There are multiple different ways to dye a piece. You can drip. Experts will often use bottles with very small opening to better control the spread of the dye and create sharper patterns.
Talking about the spread of the dye, you can use a variety of techniques to resist the spreading of the dye. You can use source techniques that control the fluid itself. By adding alginate thickener you can create a more viscous fluid.
You can also create resistance in the fabric. By wetting an area of the fabric you can prevent much of the dye from penetrating.
This gives rise to specialized techniques such as ”supersoaking”
The combination of the tying and the dyeing if what creates a pattern.
Tie-dye is as much coloring the fabric as it is resisting the coloring of the fabric.
For the dye to react with the fabric and color it there is an interesting reaction that occurs. Some amount of dye will react instantaneously with the fabric when in the presence of a suitable environment.
A suitable environment for the dye to react is when it is combined with water and washing soda. In this environment, a dye molecule will attach to a natural fiber molecule.