I like to investigate shops to pick up items they have on special and then see what I can do to brighten up my purchases. Sometimes I strike it lucky and there will be a few items the same on the rack and I can then do something a little different with each one. What I have learned is that if I see something I like at a great price, don’t just buy the one item to test it and then go back for the others. Nope – not a good idea. Most times they’ll all be gone when you go back. Lesson learned – now I’ll buy them as soon as I see them.
I picked up this little top at Big W in Brisbane. Plain white but a bit different to a normal T-Shirt.
Instead of doing something with bright colours, this time I decided to go with blues and greys. Why grey? Because when ice-dyeing, some greys split into different shades of dark blue & a bit of brown. The swatch below is Grey MXB from Kraftkolour.
Before dyeing, I washed the top, dried it, soaked it in soda ash and left it to dry again. I did a simple scrunch with this top and did a “muck” ice dye i.e. it wasn’t on a rack – it was left in the container as shown. The colours I used were Royal Blue and Indigo Blue from Sunny Daisy Tie Dye and Grey MXB from Kraftcolour.
I then sprinkled the powdered dye on top and covered in ice and left for 24 hours. I only used a small bit of the grey for some accents. With any muck dyeing, it’s important to not move the item around once the ice has melted. otherwise you may end up with a muddied mess. As the tie dyers of the world often say – “trust the muck”.
After 24 hours, I rinsed the top off with cold water to remove some of the dye and the soda ash and then did several hot water soaks to remove the rest of the excess dye. Once you’ve finished the hot soaks, the water should be nearly clear. I then washed the top in the washing machine on a normal cycle.
I really love the end result with this top. I think it looks so much more interesting than the plain white and it’s unique – no-one else will have one like it.
Couleur Creations 