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[mimium.livejournal.com]

Hi! My name's Michelle and I've been lurking around this community for a little while and I must say, I'm quite impressed with everything y'alls make! Unfortunately I have no cool finished projects (or cool projects for that matter), so no photos yet. :P

I do have (many) questions that I was hoping someone could help me with. I've looked around various sites, and in the FAQ/Memories section of this community but couldn't really find anything that was helpful...


Our swim team is planning on making shirts for an upcoming swim meet. We wanted to make shirts that were tie-dyed a dark blue color, but most of the dyes the craft stores in town have are quite light. So we were thinking we could use bleach on dark blue shirts and get nearly the same effect.

So essentially, these are my questions:

1. Would you recommend tie-dyeing with bleach? If not, do you have any alternative ideas to making a snazzy team shirt for cheap? And wouldn't take longer than a couple of hours? (And not just using iron-on letters 'cause we already did that)
   
2. If you’ve used bleach to make designs (specifically tie-dyed using bleach, if possible), how exactly did you do it? Did it come out well?
   
3. Will bleach tie-dying still work if we use the Jerzees cotton/polyester blend t-shirts? Or should we find some kind of different material?
   
4. Would vinegar work for a neutralizer, or should we buy an “official” neutralizer from a craft store?
   
5. Would it be possible to use duct-tape on the shirts before we bleached them, in order to write our team name so that after we’re done bleaching, the name shows through? Or should we use something else? Like that paraffin stuff sometimes used during dyeing?
   
6. If all else fails, how can we make the dye from the store darker? Using more dye doesn’t really help, either.

Sorry for the long post, but thanks for taking the time to read this and also for your help!