Seriously, babies in tie-dye are the cutest.

And if you’re having a baby, or want to make a great baby shower present, you can easily make tie-dyed baby onesies.

Keep reading to find out which dye to use, all the safety info to put your mind at ease, and plenty of easy tie-dye onesies patterns for you to DIY.

Can you tie-dye a onesie?

If it’s cotton or another cellulose fibre like bamboo, linen, rayon, or hemp, then yes, you can dye onesies.

If it’s mostly polyester, nylon, or another synthetic fabric, then you’ll need a synthetic dye, and I wouldn’t recommend them for baby clothes.

Fibre-reactive dye is the best…and I’ll tell you why next.

Is it safe to tie-dye baby onesies?

If you use fibre-reactive dyes, then tie-dyed onesies are perfectly safe.

Yes, fibre-reactive dyes are synthetic, but they are also non-toxic, don’t require harsh mordants, and bond permanently with the fabric. When used, applied, and rinsed and washed properly, they become part of the fabric, and won’t rub off onto your baby.

Better yet, they can’t be chewed out – you’re not going to find your toddler with a purple mouth matching his outfit.

Most of the clothes we buy and wear, including onesies, are actually dyed with fibre-reactive dyes.

Don’t use dyes for synthetic fabric with babies. They tend to coat the fabric, so your baby has a very real chance of ingesting dye if they chew on their clothes – and let’s face it, that’s what babies do.

Therefore, it’s best to stick with cellulose fibres and fibre-reactive dyes.

How long does it take to tie-dye a onesie?

It all depends on your tie-dye pattern and method.

If you do a basic scrunch and ice dye (check out the jar tutorial below), you can get the dyeing part done in under thirty minutes.

If you want to try a complicated fold with lots of colours applied precisely, it could take hours.

Luckily, the quicker and easier techniques still get great results, so even beginners can produce something fantastic without stress.

Are all of your questions answered? Great, let’s move onto the tie-dyed onesie patterns!

Ice-Dyed Onesies

You can’t get much easier than ice-dyeing onesies in a jar – simply stuff them in, add ice and dye, and leave it to do its magic.

The hardest part is waiting to rinse them out and see the results!

Galaxy Tie-Dyed Onesies

If you love bright colours and patterns, galaxy tie-dye onesies are a great project.

It’s quite an easy dye pattern because it just involves scrunching along a central line, then applying dye in stripes, but the results look fantastic.

And you can try any combination of colours you like.

Four easy onesie patterns

Want more of a challenge?

These four tie-dye baby onesies use slightly trickier (but still doable) folding and tying techniques.

For these, I’ve used primary coloured dyes that blend well. It’s a sneaky way to get lots of colours with less precise dye application.

Choose the technique you like best, or try them all.

Spirals, crumples, and electric pleats

Again, these tie-dye designs take a little bit more time, but are still easy enough for beginners.

Spirals and pleats can be hard to manage on tiny little baby onesies, but with a bit of practice and patience you’ll pull it off.

If you want to do a more complicated fold, try buying thinner onesies – thick fabric can get bulky very quickly, especially with the snaps and envelope neck.

Or you can get larger sizes – size 2 is much easier to work with than 0000!

I hope that’s given you some great ideas and you’re ready to make your own tie-dye baby onesies – please tag me @dyediyhq on Instagram or Facebook if you dye your own, I’d love to see them!