Thomas' shirt

Here is Thomas' car shirt that I sewed for him. I dyed all of my nephews shirts blue and then sewed the appliques on the front of them. The dye didn't permeate (not sure if this is the right word...) evenly, so some of the shirts look sort of like tie-dye almost. I am going to ask on craftster to try and find out tips for not ending up with tie-dye results. The purple worked fine...