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A Blast from the Past: Tie-dyeing has time-traveled from hot '60s hobby to popular 21st-century pastime.
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Cassie Tandro shares her tie-dyeing techniques that keep quality high while keeping costs down: - Tandro saves money by mixing powdered dye with water. She shakes the mixture in a squeeze bottle while protecting her hands with rubber gloves.
- Shirts are soaked for about 10 minutes in dye preactivator, which is a very fine grade of soda ash. Preactivator helps prepare the fabric for better saturation.
- Next, Tandro gathers or folds the fabric and secures with rubber bands along the length of fabric. The rubber bands also create a pattern by resisting the dye.
- Dye is squeezed onto the shirt to create a random pattern.
- Finally, the shirt is wrapped in plastic for 24 hours to allow the dye to set before being rinsed.
Tandro's Tie-Dyeing Tip: Natural fibers -- rayon, linen, cotton or silk -- dye better than synthetics.
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