Okay this is a sewing blog, but creativity doesn't always involved a needle and thread. We've grown to love our tye-dye outfits. Our summer vacation with family has always involved a little tye-dye project or two (and if you're a three year old, maybe three).
Here are just a few pictures of our lastest creations. We purchase our clothing "blanks" as they are called from Dharma Trading Company, and dyes too. Our projects are a little more involved than tying, dying, washing, and drying. I prewash all outfits first, then we soak our garment in a mixture of hot water and ash soda to take out all resides and allow the dye to adhere nicely (about twenty minutes) before we tye the garment. We apply dye and then place the garment inside a zip lock bag. I use two bags and then a plastic grocery bag as well. The garment is placed in the microwave and heated at high temperature for 1 minute intervals. We let the seam escape from the plastic bag before reheating two additional times. This avoids having to wait twenty-four hours to see the outcome of the project.
Once the garmet has been heated three minutes, I move to the rinsing stage, but leave the garment tyed. Once the warm water rinse comes out fairly clear, I move the item to the washing machine and apply a few cap fulls of synthrapol in with my laundry detergent. This seems to lock in the color better than just washing.
Last weekend we made four outfits and two headbands for Gabrielle. She's not been seen without tye-dye on in days.
No comments:
Post a Comment