Does anyone else have a sort of closet time capsule-worth of AMHA World Championship (and Nationals.. if you’re old enough) shirts from showing your miniature horses? I sure do. Someone gave me this super cute one this year and I decided to try out a reverse tie-dye on it.
Supplies For Spiral Reverse Tie-Dying a T-Shirt
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- Colored AMHyA World T-Shirt
- Bleach
- Squirt Bottle
- Rubber/Disposable Gloves
- A way to rinse out the shirt
- Three or more rubber bands
Instructions to Reverse Tie-Dye Your Horse Shirt
- Wet the t-shirt and wring it out.
- Decide where you want the center of the spiral to be, then pinch that spot and begin twisting the fabric around, creating a tight spiral.
- Once the spiral is complete, place the rubber bands around the shirt to hold it tight. I used three rubber bands which left me with six sections of the shirt.
- Put your gloves on and fill the squirt bottle with bleach.
- Place the shirt in the sink or somewhere that won’t be damaged if the bleach touches it. You can also use a cookie rack or something similar to keep it up off of the surface if you want.
- Cover every other section in bleach! You’ll see the color start to fade pretty quickly. Don’t about getting too much on the section, you can be pretty generous. Just make sure to do every other section.
- Once you’re done, flip it over and do the other side too. I made sure to bleach the same sections on both sides. I’m not sure if it makes a difference, but I thought the bleach might bleed all the way through and that would at least keep it in those sections.
- Let it sit for a while! I let mine sit for only 10 minutes and I wished I’d left it for longer, and had used more bleach. My squeeze bottle was tiny so it ran out pretty fast. Here’s what it looked like after 10 minutes:
- Once you’re done waiting, carefully remove the rubber bands and rinse out the shirt. You’ll want to be sure to get all the bleach out. Let it dry and voila! Now you have a reverse tie-dye shirt!
Cropping and Rolling the Sleeves
Up for a little more work? You can crop the shirt by cutting off the bottom part, or if you’re up for it, sewing it up then cutting off the excess (I prefer this to cutting then sewing.. a little easier to get it straight). Just make to put the shirt on to measure! I made the mistake of sewing a new hem without measuring and ended up having to take it out and shorten it more.
Once I was done with the hem, I also rolled the sleeves a couple of times and sewed on the top and bottom to keep them rolled permanently.
