the DIY: SUBTLE PATTERN TEE

So we wanted to spice up this plain white tee that Casey got for super cheap at the Gap. We also had been wanting to try to make a watermark tee so that's what we did! It didn't come out exactly like we had hoped but one day we will try again. I have already worn the final product already because I did actually like how it turned out, even though it wasn't exactly what we wanted. See how we made the subtle pattern below! You will need a blank white shirt, blue gel glue and some dye.

Start by soaking your shirt in cold water and ringing it out. Place something in between the layers of the shirt to prevent the glue from leaking through. We used sheet protectors!

You could squeeze the glue right out of the bottle onto the shirt and create designs or you can use a paint brush like we did. The glue wouldn't come out like we wanted straight from the bottle.

Start making any designs or words on the shirt with the glue.

You can see a little here how our designs looked when we were finished. Now you have to let the shirt dry completely.

 Mix your dye bath follow the instructions on the box or bottle but, use cold water. The way we did this was we took a very small amount of hot hot water and mixed the dye in it until it dissolved. Then we mixed that mixture with the rest of the water required but, we made sure that water was cold cold cold. We wanted to use two different dye colors and make a sort of ombre effect. We put one end of the shirt in a hot pink dye and one end in a golden yellow color and let it sit as long as it was supposed to.

Rinse the shirt out and let it sit in soapy water for at least 15 minutes. This should remove any glue on the shirt. Then wash and dry the shirt as normal.

As you can see, the glue didn't prevent the dye from going into the shirt as much as it should. Could be the paint brush technique. But now we call this our subtle pattern tee! It works! Just not what we expected.