In this tutorial I gave some ugly towels a makeover by tie dyeing in washing machine. I did regular sized towels as well as hand towels.

I have always read that you could dye in the washing machine but have had kind of sporadic results. This time I decided to finally try it for real and document the process so I wouldn’t mess it up again. So this post MAY be mostly for my own records!

Materials to Dye in a Washing Machine

Towels
Rubber Bands
Dye (I used both powdered and liquid)
Washing Machine
Soda Ash

Here are my towels before!

How to Tie Dye in Washing Machine

Check out this video if you’d like to watch the full process as well as watch me mess up a bunch.

I decided to dye mine two colors so I started by completely submerging my fabric but if you like the original color of your towels then fold your towels before you begin.
Set you washing machine to hot and let it start filling. Every washing machine is different so make sure it is for sure filling and not draining before you ad your dye.
If you are using powder dye, put some soda ash, baking soda or salt into your water. I did about 1/4 cup of soda ash.
Add your dye to the washing machine. This is a huge vessel of water so if you want a rich color you’re going to want a lot. For the green I used half a bottle of liquid dark green. For the black (that ended up more gray) I used about 2 ounces of powder.
Submerge your fabric and leave the lid up for a bit. My washing machine starts draining after about 5 minutes so I left it open for about that long and kept an eye on it then shut it to let it do a full cycle.
Repeat a washing cycle on COLD with detergent then dry your towels and you are done! I tied my towels at this point and then repeated the process for a two color effect. But I hated the taupe color which is why I did this!

How to Tie Towels to Dye in a Washing Machine.

Well first of all if you want to tie your big ones you are going to need A LOT of rubber bands. One did not do it for me. But the hand towels worked great! See some of my favorite ways to fold fabric below.

2 towels and 2 hand towels

How to Tie Dye in a Washing Machine

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Active Time: 20 minutes

Additional Time: 2 hours

Total Time: 2 hours 25 minutes

In this tutorial I gave some ugly towels a makeover by tie dyeing in a washing machine. I did regular sized towels as well as hand towels.

Materials

Towels
Dye

Tools

Washing Machine
Rubber Bands

Instructions

I decided to dye mine two colors so I started by completely submerging my fabric but if you like the original color of your towels then fold your towels before you begin.
Set your washing machine to hot and let it start filling. Every washing machine is different so make sure it is for sure filling and not draining before you ad your dye.
If you are using powder dye, put some soda ash, baking soda or salt into your water. I did about 1/4 cup of soda ash.
Add your dye to the washing machine. This is a huge vessel of water so if you want a rich color you're going to want a lot. For the green I used half a bottle of liquid dark green. For the black (that ended up more gray) I used about 2 ounces of powder.
Submerge your fabric and leave the lid up for a bit. My washing machine starts draining after about 5 minutes so I left it open for about that long and kept an eye on it then shut it to let it do a full cycle.
Repeat a washing cycle on COLD with detergent then dry your towels and you are done! I tied my towels at this point and then repeated the process for a two color effect. But I hated the taupe color which is why I did this!