How to Dye a Parachute

The first step in tie-dyeing a parachute is to acquire a parachute. Ken bought our pink parachute last year when we were playing around with building our own shade structure for Burning Man. We ended up not using it, but we both keep trying to figure out something fun to do with it. This year we are going to put it underneath the shade cloth of the Dye Shop's monkeyhut.

Next fold your parachute in 1/2, then 1/2 again. Now simply bunch it up and tie with ropes.

We used RIT dye for this project. To mix the dye follow the instructions on the bottle for tub dyeing.   I didn't start taking pictures until we had already done the red and the purple.

We used a big tote for the large end of the parachute and as we started getting to the top we switched over to an old ice chest.

This is dyeing the blue part. We had to let it soak a really long time to get it past just being a different shade of purple. The base color of the parachute is pink. Any color you dye it will interact with your base color. While it soaked I knit 8 rows on Jett's baby blanket. 

Green took a while too. Really think about your base color when you pick your RIT colors. I guess we could have bleached the material first, but we didn't think about it. I knit another 8 rows while this set up. 

Next is yellow, but combined with the pink and some red we had experimented with earlier we achieved some interesting mix of color. Yes, we stuck rope in with some of the colors. I mean, if you have a tie dyed parachute you HAVE to have colored rope, right? 

We added some orange to the already mixed yellow and put 1/2 original end of the parachute that we had dyed red back in. I think that turned out to be my favorite section. 

Squirt with a hose till the color stops coming out. Then spread it out over something and spray it some more.