Comments on Amethistle: Creativity for the Fun of It!: Review of Tulip Tie-Dye Kit

I recently purchased the single packs of tulip dye...

2010-10-12T17:51:52.344-07:00

I recently purchased the single packs of tulip dye Because I ran out of certain colors I needed, and want to know if I can use them in bottles from my last tulip tie dye project what the measurements would be?

I just bought and used this exact same Tulip kit y...

2010-06-08T10:01:02.342-07:00

I just bought and used this exact same Tulip kit yesterday.

I haven't tie-dyed anything for decades (literally since the craze first hit in the psychedelic 60's) but with summer fast approaching, I decided I wanted to add a couple of "wild" T-Shirts to my wardrobe. I looked online for a straight purchase, but most tie-dye websites wanted an average of $20 per shirt plus S&H. So I looked up "how to" tie-dye and, after reading a few instructions, decided to time-travel back to my youth and do it myself.

I purchased the Tulip kit at Michael's ($9.99) and really wasn't expecting much in the way of results but...

SURPRISE!

...the shirts came out MUCH better than I expected.

I started with a high-quality white T-shirt, tied in a classic swirl, and used 3/4 of the dye on this one shirt alone.

Since I had a little leftover dye, I decided to try it on a gray workout T-Shirt (poly blend), another spiral, REALLY not expecting much in the way of results.

[Note: As noted elsewhere, the dye provided is about enough for 2 shirts, IMO - not anywhere close to 8.]

I let the shirts marinate in a plastic bag overnight (16 hours total), and unveiled them this morning.

It was actually semi-thrilling to see how well the white shirt came out, a beautiful pattern.

Even the gray shirt, with much less dye, resulted in an interesting (i.e., wearable) design.

I just machine-washed the shirts, and while not quite as vibrant as they were fresh out of their plastic overnight bags, I'm still VERY pleased.

The Tulip kit was a good starter set, inexpensive and effective.

The only problem is, the rest of my wardrobe is now in danger of getting groovy!

We just published a round-up of craft blogger revi...

2009-11-09T17:38:37.059-08:00

We just published a round-up of craft blogger reviews for Tulip Tie-Dye and Fabric Dye products. People came up with awesome uses, including dying reeds for basket weaving. You can see the round-up here: http://www.favecraftsblog.com/fabric-dye-review-round-up/

Feel free to comment and add your review, or we can do so. =)

Regarding the dye running when the shirts are wash...

2009-08-01T00:57:32.710-07:00

Regarding the dye running when the shirts are washed, my guess is that they weren't washed enough the day after dyeing (assuming you let it sit overnight), and there was still a lot of excess dye in the shirts. The darker colors especially will have a lot of excess dye to wash out, since the goal is to have as much of the cotton fiber come in contact and bind with dye molecules, so the formulas provide extra dye molecules to help that, but it also means that a lot of dye is left over in the shirt.

I try to let my washing machine do most of the work, but for me the rinsing and washing still takes about three hours (depends on batch size). I run for several cold rinses with rubber bands still on (only leave rubber bands on in a FRONT-LOADER machine--you don't want stray bands to get stuck under the agitator in a top-loader). Then I remove the bands and wash warm/hot with detergent, then several more rinses with cold water.

The Tulip kits have the soda ash fixer right in the dye bottle, so forgetting to soak the shirt in the soda ash first (like at least one person does almost every time I run a big group doing tie-dye!) wouldn't be the problem here. That's one good thing about the Tulip kits.

Sorry, I've never tried to get stains out of a...

2009-08-01T00:41:36.582-07:00

Sorry, I've never tried to get stains out of a wood deck. As with stain treatments on clothes and fabric, whatever you try you should do in a hidden area first. You may just have to hope it doesn't show much, or sand it out and refinish.

My daughter and her friend used this kit to tie dy...

2009-07-28T21:27:14.806-07:00

My daughter and her friend used this kit to tie dye a couple of shirts and when they were dry they looked great, but the dye ran when they were washed. what went wrong?

I purchased a tulip tie dye kit, and dyed some won...

2009-06-27T14:23:50.187-07:00

I purchased a tulip tie dye kit, and dyed some wonderful t shirts! Unfortunately, a few drops of dye got onto our wooden deck, and we didn't notice them until the next day. Any ideas on how to get out the color?

Anne, I can't tell you why your cotton blend shirt...

2009-05-10T23:16:00.000-07:00

Anne, I can't tell you why your cotton blend shirts came out more vibrant. The reason for the 100% rule (80% cotton usually works fine too) is that polyester fibers are, when you get right down to it, plastic (think about that fleece they make now from soda bottles, and you have the idea). The Procion dyes used in the Tulip kits (as well as Dharma and Jaquard) wash right off of plastic (gloves, table covers, etc.). So that's what happens with your shirts. If you look closely at the cotton/poly, you should be able to see white fibers after washing the excess dye out. That's the polyester.

As for dyeing over other colors (colored shirts), I've done it a fair amount, but it's a little tricky. You have to remember that the colors are ADDITIVE. So if you start with a yellow shirt and put blue dye on it, you get green. Purple on yellow gives you brown, and so on. Also, the colors you put on may seem a little dull compared to how they would look on white. So it's worth trying, because you can get some interesting effects (blue and purple on a pale blue shirt looks good), but you may not get the results you expect or hope for.

Hope that helps! --Sara

Thanks for the details of what you did! I am a li...

2009-05-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the details of what you did! I am a little stumped by the 100% cotton recommendation (that I see everywhere, not just here). I tie-dyed shirts using both 50/50 and 100% cotton using the same type Tulip kit, and the 50/50 colors were much more vibrant. Started out with damp shirts both times, and I don't know why mine are the reverse of what everyone says.
Question for anyone: has anyone ever started with a colored shirt instead of white? I bought some lime green ones, and am planning to tie dye with blue and turquoise, and maybe yellow. . . not sure how this will turn out.

I purchased the Ultimate kit with 5 colors. The e...

2009-04-18T15:48:00.000-07:00

I purchased the Ultimate kit with 5 colors. The end results were extremely disappointing in that my t-shirts come out very faded and no where near the vibrant colors that the box showed. The instructions were poorly written and vague. I had prewashed my 100% cotton t-shirts as perscribed. I would not recommend this product.

Thank you for an excellent and clear review. I'm l...

2009-03-07T05:32:00.000-08:00

Thank you for an excellent and clear review. I'm looking for something to tie-dye shirts with my 5-year olds for "school spirit" day, and this sounds like it will be perfect.

Thanks for your comments! These two comments poin...

2008-11-09T21:16:00.000-08:00

Thanks for your comments! These two comments point out that everyone's technique is a little different in how much dye they use per shirt. Also, there is a big difference across shirts as to how much dye they soak up. For example, a toddler t-shirt is about a quarter of the fabric as an adult XL or XXL. And even for the same size, a thin men's Hanes undershirt (size M t-shirt) is not going to need nearly as much dye as a much thicker size M Hanes Beefy-T (which would also be cut a little larger since it's meant as an outer shirt). Since there isn't any standard here, the dye manufacturer can say pretty much whatever they want, and "your mileage will vary". Note that Dharma and other vendors of bulk dyes talk about how many _pounds_ of fabric you can dye with a particular amount of dye (much more accurate), though even that will vary somewhat.

i purchases the 3 bottle one and the 5 color one f...

2008-11-03T16:12:00.000-08:00

i purchases the 3 bottle one and the 5 color one for art club. we managed to get 9 shirts done, this with a whole bunch wasted we didnt bother opening the other packets to refil the bottles, but i think this was good. I recommed it

I purshased a Tulip Tie-Dye kit in Classic colors ...

2008-05-25T17:14:00.000-07:00

I purshased a Tulip Tie-Dye kit in Classic colors about a week ago. My family of four wanted to have maching tie-dye shirts. We stared dying the shirts one at a time, after we got done with the secobd shirt we started running out of dye. When we were done with all four shirts, the last two shirts had barely any dye on them. The box said "can make up to eight T-shirts" You can really ohly make two. Now the last two shirts look ike they are 6 years old because they are faded froj not having enough dye. I would NOT recommend this product!