Okay, so I decided to try my hand at tie-dyeing some hats the other day. Been seeing it around and thought, why not? Seemed like a fun weekend project.
Getting Started
First things first, I had to gather my supplies. I grabbed a couple of plain white cotton hats – the cheap kind are perfect for experimenting. Then I got one of those tie-dye kits. You know the ones, they come with the powdered dye in squeeze bottles, gloves, and rubber bands. Pretty convenient.
Here’s basically what I used:
- Plain white cotton hats (I did two)
- A tie-dye kit (mine had red, blue, and yellow)
- Rubber bands (plenty of them)
- Plastic gloves (super important unless you want colorful hands for days)
- A plastic tarp or some old newspapers to cover my workspace
- A bucket or tub for soaking/rinsing
- Water
- Plastic wrap or bags
The Process – Getting Messy
Alright, so I laid out my plastic sheeting on the grass outside. Good weather helps! Then I mixed the dyes according to the kit instructions – basically just adding water to the bottles and shaking them up. Easy peasy.
Next, I got the hats damp. Not soaking wet, just damp enough so the dye would spread nicely. I just ran them under the tap and squeezed out the extra water.
Now for the fun part – the tying! For the first hat, I went for a classic scrunch technique. I literally just scrunched it up into a tight ball and wrapped a bunch of rubber bands around it to hold the shape. The tighter the scrunch and bands, the more white space you get, apparently.
For the second hat, I tried a sort of spiral. I pinched the center of the hat crown and started twisting it. Kept twisting until the whole hat was in a kind of flat cinnamon roll shape. Then I secured that with rubber bands, crossing them over the center like cutting a pizza into slices. This helps keep the spiral pattern.
Gloves on! I started squirting the dye onto the hats. On the scrunched one, I just randomly applied blobs of red, yellow, and blue all over. Didn’t really have a plan, just went with the flow. For the spiral one, I applied different colors to the ‘wedge’ sections created by the rubber bands. I tried to alternate colors – blue, then yellow, then red, and repeated.
The Waiting Game
Once I was happy with the dye coverage (making sure to get into the folds a bit), I carefully wrapped each hat in plastic wrap. The kit said to keep them wrapped for like 6-8 hours, or even longer for brighter colors. I was impatient but decided to leave them overnight. Put them somewhere warm-ish and out of the way.
The Reveal and Rinse
Next day, I put my gloves back on because this part is messy too. I took the hats over to my utility sink. Carefully unwrapped the plastic and then snipped off the rubber bands. This is always the coolest moment, seeing the patterns emerge!
Then I rinsed them under cold running water. Rinsed and rinsed until the water started running mostly clear. You see a lot of dye wash out, that’s normal.
After the cold rinse, I washed them quickly with a tiny bit of soap in warm water. Just a quick hand wash. Then I squeezed out the water gently and hung them up outside to dry completely.
Final Thoughts
Honestly, they turned out pretty cool! The scrunched one is a wild mix of colors, very random and fun. The spiral one actually has a decent spiral pattern, though not perfect – which is totally fine by me. It looks handmade.
It was definitely a fun experiment. Not too difficult, just takes a bit of prep and patience for the waiting part. Plus, now I have two unique hats nobody else has. Pretty satisfying, I gotta say. Might even do some shirts next time.
