X Design Offset Tie Dye
I have kind of been on an offset kick lately. I really love the effect that an offset gives to a shirt, especially when the colors work together as well as blue and purple do. Here’s the YouTube link if you haven’t watched it yet:
An offset is where the colors on the back of the shirt don’t match up with the colors on the front of the shirt. It can be done by either using the same color palette on both sides and just shifting the colors down one spot on the back, or by using a totally different color scheme on the back. I chose to use blues on the front and purples on the back to make this offset. You don’t have to use the same number of colors either. I chose 3 blue dyes and only 2 purple ones for this shirt.
After centering, folding, and allowing the shirt to dry - I began applying the dye. Since this shirt is eight layers thick, it’s important to allow this one to dry before applying the dye. Otherwise, getting good color saturation in the middle will be a bit more difficult. For this shirt, all the dye is from Dharma Trading Company. I started with the blue dye on the front of the shirt. The line that I fan folded I made Strong Navy and then used the same dye pattern of Sapphire, Royal Blue, Sapphire and Strong Navy going either direction from the center line. On this shirt, I wanted to see some of the dye bleeding through to the back side before I turned the shirt over and began dyeing the back. When I see the blue coming through to the back, I can feel pretty confident that the center of the shirt is getting well saturated.
I flipped the shirt and applied Imperial Purple on the center line on the back. Since I only used two colors on the back side, I left a space for the Grape color and continued striping the shirt in either direction. Then I came back and filled in the blank areas with Grape. At this point, since I have already applied the blue dye to the front, I’m not as concerned about over applying the purple dye to the back side. If I had applied a really light color like yellow to the front, I would need to be a bit more light handed with the dye to make sure I didn’t overwhelm the dye on the front, but with this color combination it was fine. For designs like this one, I really like the entire shirt to be well saturated and I don’t really like any white to be showing once it is completed.
Then I allowed the shirt to process, rinsed it, washed and dried it. I saw a post on social media asking how everyone handled their shirts after they were finished dyeing them. The post asked whether you washed them in the washer or by hand, and whether you put them in the dryer, hang them to dry, etc… I personally try to launder the shirts that I dye like most customers will. I wash them in hot water during the dyeing process so that if they are going to shrink, they will go ahead and shrink before they are dyed - not after. That’s not a guarantee that they won’t shrink at all, but I wash them several times in hot water before the process is done - so, they shouldn’t shrink much more if any more once they are finished. I also wash them in the washing machine and dry them in the dryer. I agree that T-shirts will probably last longer if laundered in a more delicate way, but truthfully - who’s got time for that? As for fading - the Procion Fiber Reactive dye doesn’t fade once all of the excess dye that didn’t react with the shirt has been washed out (sometimes this can take a few washings - depending upon the color). I have T-shirts that I dyed and have been wearing for years, and the color still looks bright and vibrant.