How to Tie-Dye A Sweatsuit

Being stuck at home during the corona virus gave us a chance to try a project we’d been talking about for awhile. My fourth child, in the pink sweatsuit above, saw the project on Tiktok and wanted to learn How to Tie- Dye A Sweatsuit.

Materials:

• white sweatpants, sweatshirt, and anything else you want to tie-dye
• Rit dye- you can use the powder or the liquid. The liquid can be used two times, using 1/2 bottle each time.
• thick rubber bands
• 1 cup of table salt

Things to Consider Before You Begin:

Before we get started, let me give you a few tips:

• Items from different companies will dye differently. Because they were out of season, we had to order our sweatsuit items from here, there, and everywhere. They still turned out well, but each brand took the dye differently.
• Make sure your directions are relative to your method. If you’re not using a washing machine, follow a tutorial/method specifically for the stove or pouring method.
• Remember, if you want more of the white to show, use more rubber bands.
• Make sure your sweatsuits are big enough. You are dyeing them in hot water and they will shrink A LOT. I ordered one size up from my regular size, and was glad that I did.

Banding your item in a vertical fashion will give you a ribbed look, like the yellow sweatshirt and blue sweatsuit above.

Banding your items like we did above (these pictures show the pink garment after it was dyed, when we were removing the rubber bands) with tiny pony tails of fabric, will give you circles of color. See the circles on their sweatpants? Look at the lavender sweatsuit. The leg on the right had a few ponytails in the fabric tied with the rubberbands. The leg on the left had ponytails, plus lots of extra rubberbands bunching the fabric together even more.

I used vertical banding with my sweatshirt, plus I dyed it with yellow, then blue. That is why it’s green in some areas (yellow+blue=green). You can use a combination of all these methods. Have fun with it!

Instructions for How to Tie-Dye a Sweatsuit:

Prepare the fabric by folding and banding it.

Pour 1/2 bottle or 1 box of Rit powdered dye into 4 cups of hot water. USE ONLY ONE DYE COLOR PER WASHING CYCLE. If you want a multicolred item like my sweatshirt, you have to remove the rubberbands from the first dye process, reband it, then wash it with the new dye color.

Put your items in the washer and fill it with hot water (just until the fabric is covered) and add 1 cup of salt. When the washer has stopped filling, pour in the pitcher of water and dye, then shut the lid. Once the washer agitates for a minute or two, pause the washing cycle for fifteen minutes. After the fifteen minutes, restart the washer.

When the washer is done, remove your items and take off the rubber bands. Let your garments sit for about an hour, then wash them in the washing machine with laundry detergent and warm water. We washed each set of garments separately after they were dyed. Don’t skip this step! You don’t want a dyed, unwashed item to bleed on your other clothes later.

This project is not for the faint of heart, especially if your dyeing multiple suits with more than one color. It took four dye washing cycles and four warm water cycles to complete everything. However, it was truly worth all the work and we plan to make more. I ordered a pair of sweatpants for me because I initially bought a t-shirt and a sweatshirt only. Also, we’re making an extra sweatsuit for my fourth child and additional sweatshirts for my husband and sister. Even the dog has his own tie-dyed onesie!

I hope you enjoyed my How to Tie-Dye A Sweatshirt tutorial!

Blessings,

Kristie

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This post was featured on: Scraptastic Saturday, Encouraging Hearts and Home

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