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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.