help with patch design

[voyager]

Hi everyone,
I'm trying to design a patch for my friend Dean's band, No Age. He wants it to be made of tie-dyed T-shirt fabric, with white lettering. I made an image in Microsoft Paint to illustrate the concept:



I was wondering how to achieve a few things:

1. Create a rainbow swirl on a very small piece of fabric, roughly 6" x 6".

2. Leave a part of the fabric undyed for the white lettering.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!

-Jon

[fiberartist219]

For the lettering, if you want it small, I would just dye the whole thing and leave nothing white. Then, once it is rinsed and dried, screen print the letters on using white paint.

As far as the swirl goes, I'm not sure how small you get it, but you can try it. It might be easier with thin fabric.

[tiedyejudy]

1. Create a rainbow swirl on a very small piece of fabric, roughly 6" x 6".

2. Leave a part of the fabric undyed for the white lettering.

Hi, Jon.  For the rainbow swirl, I would use the same method as with any swirl: I use a small fork to twist the fabric into the swirl, then I would use small rubber bands to hold the shape.  This works on infant shirts, so it should work okay on a 6" by 6" cloth.
For the lettering, I would suggest 2 methods:  the easiest would be to dye the fabric, then use diswashing gel with bleach and a stencil of the letters - place the stencil where you want the words to appear, then use a foam brush to carefully dab the gel over the letters.  Let the gel dry completely, then wash out. I have had good luck with dyes bleaching out to white this way.   A more involved method would be to use soy wax to cover over the letters before dyeing - the soy wax will melt if you use hot water to wash the piece after you have batched it.   
Good luck, and let us see the results!

Judy

[voyager]

Thanks so much for the advice! 

[Jaja]

I would use vey lightweight material and very accurate applicators for the dye. Letters? - what about batik/wax resist?

[2D4]

I just had a couple thoughts....(don't you just love trying to come up with solutions...

How about using letter stencils but with white fabric paint
or perhaps vinyl letters you can iron on?

Jo