Tie-dye Family

We had another tie-dye party yesterday. My dad and his friend came for a visit today and we wore our tie-dye proudly. First we ate dimsum at Regal Palace Seafood in Lomita, then we went to the Point Vicente Interpretive Center. We were very favorably impressed with the exhibits at the newly reopened center. That's the Point Vicente lighthouse behind us.

Here is the back of my T-shirt.

Here is a better shot of Mark and Iris in their new duds.


Some friends had a baby which means more onesies. Iris received some new underwear earlier this year. Each pack came with a few white ones which she refused to wear unless I tie-dyed them. So I tossed a pair of white undies into the ziploc bag with each onesie. The panties are placed next to their corresponding fraternal twin onesie.


The purple and fuchsia onesie on the left is my personal favorite but the blue and yellow swirl is a close second.


The mother of a recipient of an earlier batch of onesies told me that visual texture near the bottom was great. It helps camouflage diaper blowout accidents. So I got a little crazy with the scrunching and rubber bands near the bottoms.


The technical stuff:

I used the same dyes and solutions as last time. I bought a second, very informative book about tie-dye from Dharma Trading which explained how to achieve many new (to me) visual textures. I used the ying-yang twist on my t-shirt which was thrown into a ziploc bag with some soda ash solution (SAS) and Deep Purple dye. (The first book I bought about tie-dye was also very useful and I highly recommend it.)

The new book also showed how to achieve the crystal effect on Mark's shirt. I cheated a bit by stuffing the whole carefully scrunched shirt into the plastic shoe storage box instead of wrapping rubber bands to hold the scrunches in place. Then I poured Sapphire Blue, Emerald Green and Burgundy dye solution on the shirt, being careful not to overlap the colors. Next, I poured SAS into the box to just cover the shirt. Lastly, I put plastic wrap over the shirt and pressed down with my hand on the shirt. This made the solution and dyes rise and bleed together a bit.

For the onesies, from left to right:

1. Lemon Yellow was splashed on selected portions and the whole thing went into a ziploc with SAS and Fuchsia Red dye.
2. SAS and Fuchsia Red dye.
3. Fuchsia Red dye was poured on one side of the fan folds, then the whole thing went into a ziploc with SAS and Deep Purple dye.
4. Lemon Yellow and Sapphire Blue dye solutions were poured onto one half (180 degrees) of the swirled and rubber banded pancake. The whole thing went into a bag with SAS.
5. Lemon Yellow was splashed on and the whole thing went into a bag with SAS and New Emerald Green dye.

The panties were just scrunched up and thrown in the baggies. They tended to come out a combination of the colors in their fraternal twin.

All the baggies and plastic shoeboxes were placed on a sunny flagstone patio to cure for 4 hours before rinsing and washing with synthrapol.

Have fun with your own tie-dye adventures.

keywords: tie-dye instructions, ziploc baggie dyeing instructions, Modern Motherhood

Addendum:
My vision is finally clearing up. The doctor says I can hope to be back at work in another week or two. Lying around in a darkened room, listening to books on tape, was getting a bit old. I did grow half an inch (according to the physician's assistant who measured me) from all the lying around in the past month.

More Dyeing Adventures

There's a baby boom at work this spring. You would think that no rocket science is getting done around here. I spent a couple of hours dyeing up a dozen items just prior to kickoff yesterday. I also dyed up a devore silk scarf using these instructions.

I made up a soda ash solution.
4 Tablespoons soda ash
1/2 Cup rock salt
Hot water to make up 1 gallon

I then made up solutions of 1 teaspoon Procion dye powder and 8 oz. of water. The trick is to mix a very small amount of water into the dye to make a paste. Stir until there are no lumps left, then add the rest of the water. Fuchsia is very strong and you can get by with less than a full teaspoon of dye powder. The blue dyes are weaker and you may want to use two teaspoons of dye powder. You can also use Glauber's salt to improve blue yield.

I washed the stuff to be dyed in synthrapol, a special detergent that does not have any additives that might interfere with dyeing. It is also very effective at keeping dye chemicals suspended in water so that they do not back dye the items (more on that later). I swirled, rolled or pleated the damp onesies and held them together with rubber bands.

I poured 2 cups of the soda ash solution into 3 1 gallon ziploc bags and poured some turquoise, midnight blue or sapphire blue dye solution into them. I used a foam brush to "paint" some yellow or fuchsia on some of the onesies and threw them in the baggies. I put two onesies into each bag. The colors blended into green and purple in some sections and stayed distinct in others.

I put the baggies outside on the south-facing flagstone patio for 4 hours. Heat helps the dye take. Then, I squeezed out the dye solution, rinsed in cool water in the kitchen sink a bit, then wrung them out one last time. The items were all washed by machine with a little bit more synthrapol. If you don't use synthrapol, you run the risk that the leftover dye molecules will stain the undyed sections.

Here is the scarf sitting in the plastic shoe box in kitchen sink after the sapphire blue and turquoise dye were poured on.



After pouring in just enough soda ash to cover the scarf, I placed two layers of plastic wrap on top of the wet scarf and pushed down to make sure the dye penetrated all the way through the scarf. It went out on the flagstone patio also. Because I have never dyed silk or rayon with Procion before, I put the shoe box in the microwave for a minute before rinsing. I then threw the scarf in the washing machine with the rest of the stuff.



As you can see, the color came out fully saturated and beautiful. The fringe came out a knotted mess. I should have heeded the instructions. They said to wash the scarf by hand, being careful not to tangle the fringe. I did follow their example and poured one color on 2/3 of the scarf and the other color on the remaining 1/3. If you tried to do it in halves, then the fact that it isn't perfectly 50/50 will really bother the eye.

Ice dye experiment 2

I've been ice dyeing again.

Incredible visual texture

First, I soaked the shirts in a solution of 1/4 cup soda ash for each gallon of hot water.  Then I wrung them out by hand (but not too much) so that they were thoroughly soaked, but only slightly drippy.  Then I

1. Arranged t-shirts on the bottom of each plastic bin
2. Placed a cookie cooling rack above them
3. Put a white dress shirt on top of the rack
4. Mounded ice cubes to completely cover the shirts (2+ inches deep)
5. Sprinkled dye powder on top
6. Went to bed

Ice dye, low immersion scrunch dye, tie-dye in baggies.

In the morning, I

1. Spun out the shirts in my spin dryer
2. Washed them twice in *hot* water with synthrapol dyer's detergent
3. Rinsed them twice in cool water
4. Spun them in between each wash and rinse to extract as much dye as possible 
5. Spinning minimizes the number of washes and rinses you have to do

That's no plunger; it's a Breathing Washer.

Drying

Front of my favorite shirt

Back of my favorite shirt

Look at that detail!

A friend treats a lot of kids with head injuries.  The kids are in pain.  The parents are freaked out.  He's intimidatingly big at 6'3".  He likes to wear goofy things to lighten up the mood.  I think these will break the tension.  What do you think?

Two shirts going to a friend.

I mailed them off this morning, tucking in one of the blue/green tie dye shirts you saw on the drying rack.

Detail of the pocket

Ice dye shirt underneath the dress shirt caught the drips.

Two of the shirts were claimed by friends who came over for dinner while they were still drying.  Two more were claimed by friends who came over for dinner a few nights later.  She selected this one

This shirt caught the drips under my fave dress shirt.

and he selected this one.  (I know the title says ice dye, but this scrunch dye came out pretty cool.)  It looks kinda like space--perfect for a physics professor.

Spacey scrunch dye

The back view that the students will see in the lecture hall.

Another shirt went home to DD via DH, who flew into Boulder for a quick business meeting.

In total, I dyed 4 dress shirts and 7 t-shirts.  All of them were post-consumer waste given to me; the only new things I purchased were the dyeing supplies.

I gave away 3 dress shirts and 5 t-shirts.  This made a sizable dent in my refashioning supplies.

A coworker had a baby boy recently, so I need to tie-dye some baby onesies.  Click that link to see adorable baby onesies I've made in the past.  Explore all my Dyeing posts for dye recipes, tutorials and the results.

I've been sewing.  I've been working hard at my day job.  I have some science posts planned, but don't know when I will find time to write them.  There may be some short, quick posts to highlight interesting things I found before then.

Not more tie-dye!

Yup, we had another tie-dye playdate this Sunday. Check out these onesies by a newbie. This is her first effort. Pretty great, huh?

I dyed a few things. ;-) Here is her "Rock Star" pose, learned from watching a Polly Pockets movie. Click here to see the back.

This is the air guitar move learned from watching School of Rock.

Before I got started, Mark told me he didn't need any more t-shirts. I asked him if he was sure, because this shirt has a pocket. (I sometimes pick up shirts from thrift stores to overdye.) When this shirt came out of the dryer, he asked, "Is that for me?" in a hopeful voice.

A yoga top in relaxing blue for me.




Size small (14-18 #) onesies. Would the reader in NY email me with her preference for her grandson?


Click here for a prior tie-dye entry with recipes for soda ash solution and dye-mixing.

2014 Wrap-up

I would like to post a wrap-up of my 2014 sewing and knitting activity. Unfortunately, this post doesn't contain any pictures of my makes. Most of them remain unblogged.

However, my spreadsheet says that I completed 37 items in 2014, including a sweater I started in 2010. Sadly, that sweater looks awful on me. Happily, it looks great on a beloved friend. Perhaps she will allow me to post a picture of her modeling it some day.

• 37 items
• 13 for me
• 10 for Iris
• 10 Home Dec
• 4 for others
• oops, forgot the 5 tie-dyed onesies 

January and August 2014 saw bursts of sewing activity.  Iris needed clothes, stat, and her mommy delivered.  It looks like January 2015 will also be about filling holes in Iris' wardrobe.

The big news (and cause of low sewing productivity) in 2014 is that I moved away from my family for a full-time job.  I haven't worked full-time since motherhood so this would have been a big transition even without the move.

In December 2013, I interviewed three times for a research position in Palo Alto.  Palo Alto to LA is a doable weekly commute and I was prepared to do it.

Surprisingly, I did not hear from that research lab for months.  Instead, I spotted a job posting in Boulder in a department and institution that I respect greatly.

It happened very quickly.  I applied.  I interviewed.  I got the job.  I moved to Boulder.  Palo Alto called just days after I moved to Boulder.  No, I wasn't available; I lost interest in them.

Bad Dad and I were married in Boulder.  I received my PhD and he postdoc'd here.  We have many friends in Boulder.  We had always dreamed of having condos in both Colorado and one of the California major cities (SF/LA/SD) and dividing our time between them once Iris moved away for college.

This job just accelerated the schedule somewhat.

I telecommute about 1 out of every 3 weeks so that Iris can remain with Bad Dad in California to finish high school.  They also visit me in Boulder.

Boulder is the epicenter for atmospheric science in the US.  Redondo Beach is the epicenter for the development of certain types of satellites.  It's not surprising that a two-PhD family would make their life among these two places.  There are more tragedies in life than having to split your time between the communities of Redondo Beach and Boulder.  The ocean and the mountains.  Rocket scientists are thick on the ground in both communities.

You've heard of selfish sewing?  What do you think of claiming this spot for my sewing space?  Creative play deserves an inspirational view, right?

This view is a short walk to Elfriede's Fine Fabrics (and JA's) and the Boulder Creek path. Velosewer, it is time to plan your sewing/biking/hiking retreat.

Tie-dye June 2008

Remember the last baby boom? The Smart Bohemian and I tie-dyed 25 onesies last Sunday.

A friend/neighbor dyed three t-shirts; one new and two refashions.

His son and Iris dyed 4 shirts. the 5th one is from Iris' class project last Fall.

I refashioned Iris' ghost costume from a few Halloweens back. It will be my contribution to "The elephant in the room". See the cutout for her face? The lopped off corner attests that the ghost costume was itself a refashion. A triple use item.

"THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM" will be a giant group-built elephant sculpture (created by Beth Elliott) upon which participants can sit and pose for a photo. Democrat, Republican, Independent--everyone has a different "elephant in the room" re: public education funding. The Elephant (non-partisan, chosen only for structural stability) welcomes all--as in the barndance, all comers are invited to take a whirl.

A closeup of a tank top for myself. I used Sapphire Blue and Better Black, which is supposed to give blue-toned edges. It came out more brown than black.

Remember the stitched heart? We gathered up the string, then put a rubber band over it. Then we put rubber bands above and below that, to make a triple heart. Then we threw it into a ziploc bag with 3 cups of dye activator and 1/2 a cup of Fire Red dye solution.

Perhaps we should have massaged the bag a bit more to make the shirt more even. Iris seems happy with it and that is what matters. We dyed a gauzy dream skirt in the same shade. This bag was massaged assiduously to produce an even shade.

Fire red on the left, sunrise red on the right. Note how the edges of sunrise red are yellow? The dye powder starts out yellow, then turns red when wetted.

There's more. I will post the rest later. I should mention that we used the same dye activator solution in the dye recipes posted here, but we dissolved 1 TABLESPOON of dye instead of one teaspoon per cup of water. (Except for the fuchsia, which we left at 1 teaspoon.) That is why the colors are more saturated than the ones I showed before.


Aside:
Iris started her own blog; the link is on the right. I have no idea what she is going to say. I am just her typist. She also started a weekly newspaper. We divided up the beats. She wouldn't let me cover fashion because she says I have such a terrible fashion sense. She also wouldn't let me do book reviews because she plans on doing all the reviewing herself.

She gave me Op-Ed when I asked for it because she didn't know what that was.

New Threads Downtown

Los Angeles Conservancy gave tours of Union Station today.
Iris was in charge of the camera and it is fun to look at the outing from her vantage point. This is the ticket hall that is normally off-limits to the public.
I showed off a new skirt made with Vogue 1358. Iris and I both love this dark turquoise/teal supplex & nylon blend. It packs well, dries quickly and works with so many items I already own.
Iris wore Kwik Sew 2666 pants made of gray cotton interlock and a white Dharma Trading* smocked top.
I got the fabric for both the skirt and pants at SAS Fabrics in Hawthorne, CA. It's an odd-jobber that sews factory leftovers by the pound. In a way, these are recycled fashions because these scraps would have ended up being dumped at a fiber recycling plant if hobbyists like myself didn't find higher uses for them.

Afterwards, we went to Ocean Seafood in nearby Chinatown for dim sum. Yum!

Clockwise from left to right: house special roast chicken, shrimp with honey walnuts, rice wrapped in lotus leaves, double soy (tofu and soybeans) with mustard greens, congee/jook/shi fun/rice porridge, seaweed salad with home-style sweet pickles.
Kwik Sew has awesome patterns in awful wrapping. Would you be attracted to a pattern that looks like this?
Not many people would, which is why this pattern is now out of print, OOP. But, straighten out the leg flare and this pattern for knits with lycra makes the best fitting pull-on pants. Iris has had 8 pairs of these in her lifetime. I made pair #8 in black last night.

This is the 5th time I made the skirt in Vogue 1358. This time, I cut the front in one piece and the back in two pieces. Iris says it looks much nicer without the front seam. You can see iteration #4 here.

I do sew from new patterns, too. I made a new linen skirt yesterday from Vogue 9414 and will show it off later.

* BTW, if you know me in real life and want to place an order with Dharma, let me know ASAP. I am putting together a group order. Babies are arriving really soon and I can't let them go home without tie-dyed onesies.

Onesies, Twosies

A funeral brings Iris' aunt and cousin for a visit on short notice. People react to death in different ways. I make baby clothes.

Iris' second grade teacher left at winter break on maternity leave. Iris also left the class and entered third grade after the break. By procrastinating, I was able to learn that she had a girl.

Her two year old cousin gets a dress with matching panties and leggings. Her mom says she never has enough pants to last until the next wash day. This should help.

Notice how I used the "sickly mauve of blue-rinse hair" that Suzy Menkes, fashion editor for the International Herald Tribune, hates so much. Dharma Trading calls it Plum Blossom and I love the color.

Iris and I owe you a better picture of our mommy and me tulip skirts (aka An Affair to Remember aka butt skirt) from Annie Modesitt's Romantic Knits. We will take some daylight pix with the cover vantage point later.

Dye Workshop

Mark went on a business trip. Iris went to San Diego Zoo day camp (and her grandparents' house) and I had the house to myself to play. There were onesies for more babies on the way...

...bubble rompers for Iris' cousin,












...dresses for two sisters...

...dresses for two sisters and a matching top for their mommy...

..more tops...


...and another dress.
This last dress came out too dark in the upper left bodice area so Iris and I lightened it with a stencil and some dishwashing gel used as a discharge paste. We are quite happy with the result.

I also tried some Shibori techniques on a shirt for Mark. In the middle of tying,
after painting the dye on the shirt,
the resulting front,
and back.
I just noticed that Dharma has instructions for a similiar Shibori project. I used crochet cotton which is a bit thicker than the dental floss that they used. They demonstrate one particularly effective techique. After you have painted the color on, lightly brush a contrasting color on the surface of some areas. It creates a sheer wash with very distinct patterning. You can see the effect in the bottom section of the shirt where I washed a bit of sapphire blue on top of the turquoise blue.

I feel a digression coming on.
While taking a shibori workshop from Joy-Lily, I made the error of referring to what we were doing as tie-dyeing. She promptly told me that we were practicing Shibori, not tie-dyeing. I asked her what the difference between the two was. She said that tie-dye is something cheap you find at a crafts sale. We were learning an art.

I am reading Yoshiko Wada's definitive book about Shibori which is worth every penny for all that I am learning from it. Wada also make a point that Shibori is a much more than tie-dye. She says that Shibori represents a whole genre of techniques that includes much more than tying. I stand corrected.

Oh, no! Another digression
This whole distinction reminds me of the time an older gentleman where Maribeth and I work referred to me as a girl. He recoiled in mock horror and said, "We are not supposed to call you that anymore. Nowadays, you are called women."

I replied without missing a beat, "I don't care what you call me as long as you pay me like a man."

He grinned and said, "You're all right."

Back to the present.
The organic cotton is white no more. I got very carried away with the dye this week. I followed the directions on Dharma's website except that I poured the dye on instead of painting it on. I then gently massaged the dye mixture into the yarn. (I used leftover dyes from the other project. It took approximately 3 cups of dye stock solution to dye two skeins of the Inca organic cotton. The dye stock solutions were mixed at 1 tsp of dye powder to 1 cup of water.)

Rinsing did not take as long as I feared.

I will post pictures of a knitted swatch when I finish the Basalt Tank (very soon, I hope).

Click here to see undyed yarns and here and here to see the finished yarn.