This was my first ice dye and I'm super happy with the way it turned out! Definitely doing some more soon. I love this shirt

I had an old sweatshirt with a few stains on the sleeve. Before getting rid of it, I decided to try ice dying to see if I could hide the stains. Here's my process: The sweatshirt is a 50/50 cotton/polyester blend. All dyeing products were purchased from Dharma Trading Co.

1. I filled a 5 gallon bucket with a mixture of 1 cup soda ash and 1 gallon of cold water.
2. I soaked the sweatshirt in the soda ash mixture for 20 minutes, then I squeezed it out.
3. I scrunched up the sweatshirt and placed it on a baking rack. I made a collar out of plastic bubble mailers to keep the sweatshirt scrunched up.
4. I completely covered the sweatshirt in ice and then dumped heaps of Wedgewood Blue dye onto the ice. Then, I waited for the ice to melt overnight.
5. After all the ice was melted, I rinsed the sweatshirt with cold water until the water ran clear. Then I rinsed the sweatshirt with hot water until the water ran clear.
6. I washed the sweatshirt in my washing machine using hot water and a small amount of Dharma Dyer’s detergent.

Here’s the finished result! I wish there were more areas where the sweatshirt stayed white, but overall I’m happy with it. Next time I’ll try a different scrunching pattern and sprinkling the dye instead of heaping it on.

9 point transitioning to an 18 point

Not exactly tie dying but I had a dyeing fail I wanted to ask about. I had some cotton socks in various colors that I wanted to dye black. I had a bottle of Rit liquid dye at home so I used that. Here are the steps I took:

1. I mixed the dye with hot water from my kettle, salt, and dish soap, then submerged the socks in the dye and stirred for an hour.
2. I put the socks in a water/salt/vinegar bath since I didn’t have the Rit fixative. I let them sit in the bath for 24 hours.
3. I rinsed the socks in cold water until the water ran clear, then I rinsed the socks in hot water from the kettle until it ran clear.
4. I hand washed the socks in a mixture of warm water and Dharma’s Dyer Detergent.

The socks lost a lot of color when I was rinsing them with hot water. I’m considering repeating the process but leaving out that step. I’m also considering doing the stovetop method. Any pointers?

I'm truly administer at some of the work on here but just struggle in understanding how to achieve the patterns I'm trying for. Does anyone have advice or guides not just on how to do it, but how to truly understand how it all works? Like a program or video that breaks down step by step what I'm doing and how it'll affect the end product because I can follow guides but I want to be able to explore and expand further on my own.