DIY Rit Dye Pillows

Hello friends! Earlier this week I posted about the Fourth of July decor we added to our outdoor living space and today I’ve got the tutorials for the DIY Rit Dye Pillows you saw in the post! My original inspiration for this project were all the beautiful Shibori pillows I keep seeing pop up in stores and online, but Shibori is really just a fancy work for Tye Dye in my opinion! I wanted to create a unique look so I picked up some Rit Dye at my local JOANN store and played around. Today I’m going to give you an overview of how I made the pillows and also share some tips on what I would do differently too!

DIY Rit Dye Pillows

How To Make Shibori Pillows

SUPPLIES:

• 22″ X 22″ piece of 100% cotton (1 per pillow)
• 1 Cup of Salt
• 1 Teaspon of Dish Soap
• Navy Blue Rit Dye
• Scrap pieces wood
• Rubber Bands

The amazing thing about dying fabric is that every piece turns out completely unique. No two pieces are alike, you can come up with a million different patterns and techniques and that is the fun part of the art form. To give you an idea of how I achieved the patterns on my pillows, I’m going to walk you through the techniques I used when dying my fabric.

Fabric Dying Process

For the first look, I simply folded my square pillow fabric in quarters, then rolled it up around a piece of wood. Then I placed a second piece of wood on the top and rubber banded it together. For the second look, I folded my pillow square in half, placed a piece of 2.5″ wood at the bottom and then rolled it up! I rubber banded it together. 

For this look, I took the pillow square, folded it in half and then rolled it up. Then I scrunched it into a smaller ball and wrapped it several times with rubber bands. And the last look turned out to be my favorite pattern. I simply folded it into a square and then into smaller triangles and rubber banded it together. 

Here are how all my pillow squares looked before I dyed them! For this project, I followed the directions on the back of the Rit Dye bottle. I used 100% cotton fabric, so in my bucket I filled it about 3/4 of the way with hot water, 1 tsp. of dish soap, about 1/2 bottle of Rit Dye and 1 cup of salt. I did two pillows in blue and let them sit for about 45 minutes in the mixture. Then you want to carefully take them out, rinse them off until the water runs clear and then unwrap them! This is how vibrant the colors were after I opened up each piece of fabric. To finish them off, you will want to machine wash them.  I LOVED this deep color and was a little disappointed that it faded so much once I washed the fabric in the machine. But I still like the more muted tone as well. 

I repeated the process using the cherry red Rit Dye for a little more pop of color!

They add such a fun look to our little Fourth of July patio decor!

If you are looking for more red, white and blue to add to your home, click here to download my brand new set of Fourth of July Printables!

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