Cold Water Irrigation Experiment

[@311junglist]

Love white spaces. Beautiful shirt 💙💙

[@denisef1684]

This turned out great! I have always wondered how the cold water immersion worked! Thanks again for an amazing tutorial!

[@SledgehammerTieDyes]

Happy to help!

[@jennifersledge599]

That is a crazy-cool shirt! I love the randomness and the yellow and white in the sinew lines makes it look like the lines are glowing.

[@GOYOSGardenTiedyes]

The best ones are never in our size. I’ve learned that a while ago great job😁✌️

[@SledgehammerTieDyes]

So true!

[@claycutter]

I am going to try your technique and probably the same color combo as you used. Instead of yellow I will use daffodil and instead of black magic may be dutch choco and cerulean or navy blue. btw love your shirt

[@SledgehammerTieDyes]

Do it!! That sounds like a great color combo!

[@karentaylor89]

Cool shirt!

[@andybowlin2385]

I do mostly HWI i was wandering if u had to use hot hot water so I guess u dont really need 180 degree water to get good color huh

[@SledgehammerTieDyes]

You need hot soda ash water to set the color. I assume you mix soda ash in with the dye before you apply the hot water. Doing it that way makes the dye react immediately as it’s saturating the shirt, which can give really a cool “painting” effect, but it can also hinder a thorough saturation. The benefit of CWI is that you can push the dye all the way into the shirt without causing the dye to react which gives you a more solid color but the color can end up being a bit muted compared to HWI. I mix soda ash into the hot water at the end which causes the color to actually set. It does require the use of quite a bit more soda ash tho.

[@andybowlin2385]

@SledgehammerTieDyes yes I put a good layer of soda ash on before the hot water. So with cold water u don't need the soda ash on top of the dye just in the hot water it batches in?

[@SledgehammerTieDyes]

Sorry I missed this! But to answer your question, yes. As long as the shirt is applied with soda ash in whatever manner before the dye has time to batch then you’re good. The main thing is that you need either time, heat, or both for the soda ash to take effect.