About the Artist
ERIN PIERSON
Artist and Owner
Erin Pierson started tie dyeing after deciding to stay home full time with her 2 children. She used this art form as a way to keep busy and to give herself a creative outlet. Little did Erin know, her passion for tie dye would grow so rapidly. The tie dye bug bit her and she was hooked! That's how Righteous Rags was born. Thanks, in part, to the encouragement and support of her family, Erin recognized her natural talent and went all in. Now 5 years later, Erin works hard every day experimenting, practicing and perfecting her art, to bring you unique, quality made tie dye at fair prices.
As a member of the LGBTQ+ family, Erin takes pride in her queer owned and operated business. You can see RR at many local pride festivals. Erin is pretty much an open book, if you have any questions for her please feel free to go to the "Contact Us' page and send her a message!
Our Tie Dye
Process
We use procion MX fiber reactive dyes for tie dyeing. This type of dye only reacts with natural fiber material. It will wash right out of synthetic fibers. We start the process by washing the items we are dyeing in super hot water with Dawn dish soap. After the wash they go into a bin for soaking in soda ash. The soda ash basically makes the dye stick to the fibers. Without it, the dyes will wash out over time. Once the item has soaked, we spin out the excess SA and begin tying up the design. At this point we have a few different options for applying the dye.
The traditional liquid dye method is mixing our powdered dye with water in squirt bottles and then applying it to the fabric. We also really enjoy ice and snow dyeing. It gives a beautiful watercolor effect. This method uses more dye powder and takes longer but it totally worth it!
Ice dyeing begins the same way as traditional liquid dyeing, but after the garment is tied up, we put it in a container, or on a rack over a container. There are 2 ways to apply ice and dye, ice over the dye or sprinkle the dye over the ice. We use both techniques depending on the look we're going for.
After the item has been left to batch (sit with dye on it) for a minimum of 24hrs the rinsing process begins. First a cold water rinse while its still tied, this is to rinse out the soda ash. Untie and continue rinsing in cold until all of the soda ash is rinsed out. then we switch to hot water and soak the items in super hot water for 2-6 hrs depending on many different factors, but basically until the water is clear and this can require multiple water changes. FINALLY after the hot soak(s) everything goes into the washer for one last hot water wash in Dawn. Then into the dryer, ironed and ready to go!
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