Ingredients
Meat, Salads, Barbie, Grog!
Digital Camera or good Camera Phone - for capturing each and every step and of course the finished product!
5 powdered colours each (We found these to be the best colours- red blue yellow turquoise green) 50g at $15 each from Commission Dyers South Australia but you can order them through Premier Art Supplies
Silk @ around $14 metre also from Premier Art Supplies- 43 Gilles St, Adelaide City.
Weights - Depends on size of flag. See the Handy Dandy Cord Calculator.
5 x 5 litre plastic sealable buckets from Bunnings- $5.30 each (like the nappy (diaper) soaking buckets only smaller)
5 x 600ml ketchup bottles from Premier Art Supplies at around $3 each
Microwave - 3 mins only on high! - no more- we burnt our first test- god it stank! hehe
Newspaper to catch all spills
Rubber gloves - dyes stain hands!
Measuring jug
Funnel - metal if possible or cheap plastic to pour dye into bottles
Stirrer- We used a metal salad server! - find a few to stir up your dye potions!
Cotton Twine- like what you'd use to tie up a roast.
Marking Textas - to label colour buckets and bottles with colour names once mixed
Scissors - sewing shears are best
Large Tupperware type sealable container- for microwaving tied silk
Rock Salt- Optional - I used some of this tied up in my sets to give an interesting effect
Hammer and Nail - to punch a hole in the top of each ketchup bottle.
Rags - for spills and cleanup
RIT Fabric Whitener - for preparing the silk so it 'pops' under blacklight. We used Nappy San as we couldnt find RIT.
Vinegar - used in a 1:1 ratio of 1 lire vinegar and 1 litre water - used as a wash after the fabric whitener
Large clean busket - for rinsing silk in Vinegar
Large bucket of clean water - for rinsing tied sets after microwaving
Clean washing line - Don't use pegs as these will make dents
Several Sewing Machines, white cotton and sewing materials

Beforehand
I recommend recording each step of your first tie dye event. Make it fun and memorable! Make ONE person the photographer OR I advise using only ONE camera or mobile cam as this makes collecting the pics easier for posting to your site, blog or album. If you dont trust one recording device, have others handy as backup.
Start the Barbie. Designate the chef!

Preparing the Silk
Wash all silk in fabric whitener. We recommend RIT Fabric Whitener on a silk or delicate wash.
Rinse 1:1 ratio vineger to water in clean bucket .
Hang on line till the silk is almost but not completely dry.
Iron at silk setting so wrinkles are reduced before tiedying

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Prepare the Dye
Come up to the lab and see whats on the slab!!!
Find a wind free well lit area.
Grab a large long table and cover in newspaper. Put on your gloves!
Lay out your white 5 litre buckets from Bunnings and label each one its own colour with a marking pen .
Do the same with your bottles labeling each one accordingly.

Designate someone to punch holes in the tips of the bottles with a hammer and nail.
50g powder makes 5 litres. Mix each 50g dye powder powder in its own clean bucket with 500ml of warm water first to dissolve it. Then pour in the remainder with cold clean (possible filtered) water to fill the 5 litre bucket just below the top.

Stir each colour slowly and thoroughly. Use the rags to clean the spoon before changing colours!
Use the measuring jug and the funnel to fill the bottles being careful to pour over the bucket to catch any spills.
Close up the lids on the remainder of the dye in each bucket and put to the side. Youre going to get a lot of sets out of each 5 litres of dye!
Lid the bottles. Down tools!
Go Eat Your Snags! (and have a beer while youre at it!)
You've done the hard work. Now go eat and get your energy up for the fun!

Tying
Tie up your silk, taking note of other flags methods. Experiment first on spare silk!
Tie firm bows on your silk. Get assistance if needed. If you use knots it runs a risk of cutting silk with scissors.

Dyeing

Remember what colours make other colours. See Colour wheel above:
You can leave white areas for more glow or 'pop' areas or concentrate on blending Primary colours into other colours to get Secondary and Tertiary colours.

Setting the Silk
We recommend doing a test first for this with a scrap of dyed silk. Different voltages in different countries can give different results with microwaves so test first!
Here in Australia we found it worked best with a 1000 watt Microwave on high for 3 mins in tupperware container. Lid on but not tight.

Opening Your Set
Dip into cold clean water immediately after microwaving and gently squeeze out any excess.
Carefully untie your set.
Announce your grand set opening to your group!
Where's that photographer?!
Open, gloat and pose!!!! Have a drink!

Hang to dry and iron just before its dry to make sure it gets as smooth and flat as possible.

Sew up your flags
Make a short sharp incision in the middle of one side of your set and rip boldly in half. You now have two completely identical flags ready to sew!
Make sure you have several people sewing on seperate machines to get this done ASAP.
Go flag!! Have fun!
Test out your flags at home then find a club with decent blacklights and a stage and go flag! Inspire people and make them smile!
Finally, go post all those pics on your blog, site or album and inspire others to join your troupe! Others would kill to have as much fun as you did today!