I’ve done a lot of fabric dying over the past few years. Most specifically starting in college when one of my instructors mentioned we could just dye our muslin for our final pieces instead of having to buy different fabric. The muslin came with our supplies paid for by our tuition, and I didn’t have a job so it was a welcome revelation.

Since then I’ve dyed many t-shirts and more muslin for other projects, so when I was asked if I could fix a shirt I knew that was definitely on the list of things I can do.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of what it looked like before. So here is a picture of it after applying the dye.

And this is what it looked like after washing.

As for ignoring the directions, well, see that bottle of dye in the top picture? It’s Tulip Permanent Dye, meant for dying large batches of fabric in hot water with salt. They have other dye specifically for tie dye. But I’m going to share my secret: it works just as well mixed with cold/warm water. As long as you wet the piece first and let it set overnight, you can use it just the same as the “one step” dye.