Name: Suzanne 

Message: Thanks for all the GREAT information- I have learned so much in just one afternoon!  I am having a birthday party for my daughter and we are planning to tie dye t-shirts.  I know that they must sit overnight in a plastic bag to set, but I was wondering if I could take off the rubber bands after a short time of setting in order to see the design, and then repackage in plastic for overnight.  This would be fun for the kids to be able to see each others designs before they leave the party.  I thought I might be able to lay them out flat and then roll them up in saran wrap to keep the fabric from touching itself while they finish setting overnight.  Then I could just send home with instructions for washing out as you suggest.  Any shot that this would work?  If not, any thoughts on how I could I might be able to get this done?  Thanks in advance for your help!

I don't think you should unwrap the shirts until they're done, because it's disappointing when the dyes smear from a dark section to a light one. I'm pretty sure this will happen a lot. Also, I do not like letting the kids handle the wet dye too much, since they will make a mess, and we are supposed to minimize the amount of dye they get on their skins for safety reasons, as well.

How many people will be at the party? You can have nearly-instant gratification by heat-setting the dye. I am assuming that you are using cold water fiber reactive dyes, such as the Procion MX dyes found in good tie-dye kits. They do not have to be heat-set, but it takes hours for the dye to react with the fabric at room temperature. If you warm up the reaction, it takes place much more quickly. 

One handy way to heat up the reaction, one shirt at a time, is to pop each shirt into a separate gallon-size zip-lock freezer bag, squeezing out all the air before you finish sealing it closed, and then microwave it for a minute or so, watching very closely as it cooks to see when the bag inflates with steam. If the bag is about to pop, stop the microwave immediately by pressing the "open" button. Feel the shirt; if it is hot all over, you're done, but if it's not, you should let it rest for a minute and then heat it some more, again watching very closely. Keep in mind that the shirt MUST be damp, as it will be if you have just recently applied the dye; a dry shirt will scorch or even catch on fire in the microwave. It is essential to watch constantly, because you don't want the bag to explode and make a mess in your microwave. I recommend a freezer bag rather than a storage bag, because the freezer weight of a ziplock bag is sturdier than that of the cheaper bags. Let the shirts cool before you rinse them out.

Before heat-setting the shirts, it is best to let the dye soak in for at least twenty minutes. If you apply the dye and then microwave immediately, the dye may not have had time to penetrate the fiber, which will result in dyeing just the outside of each fiber; this outside layer wears off the quickest, so the dye job will not last nearly as long. It's called ring-dyeing when only the outside of the fiber gets dyed.

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