Tie-ing and Dye-ing

The t-shirt I did for myself. An off center spiral dyed in pie sections.

So I tried something new this week. Tie-dye! I was inspired by the tutorials over at Jedi Craft Girl's blog. She just did a week of tie-dye tutorials that totally explained the methods of folding and dying in a way that made it make sense. I can't believe I got results this nice on my first dying attempt.  Major props to Amanda for her good teaching :)

L to R: Off center spiral dyed in pie sections; Starfish symmetrical design with pleats at the bottom; Pleats; Spiral dyed in spiderweb; Pleats; Spiral dyed in spiderweb style, different colors on the front and back

Personally I've never been a huge fan of wearing tie-dye. I don't know why, I guess it's just not something people do in my part of the country.  I had to make at least one shirt for myself (first pic in the page) but for the rest of them I did what I usually do and made baby stuff!  I got 2 packages of Carters plain white onesies. They are 100% cotton and took the dye just great.

I took closeups of a few of my favorite designs. This one is made by folding a spiral and then applying the dye in a spiral to create an effect Amanda calls "spiderweb."  The tutorial for this one is here.  You really have to go read the tutorials, she makes it so simple!

Of course, the great thing about tie-dying for babies is it just makes sense. Babies are messy and nothing disguises spit up quite as well and a bright, loud, busy design.

This one was done using the running stitch technique from Amanda's "Symmetry" tutorial.  I wasn't sure how well it was going to work until it was done, but I couldn't be happier. After folding the starfish I folded the bottom of the onesie in pleats to get the effect on the purple stripe.

L to R: Multicolor spiral dyed in pie sections; Double spiral with random dye; Symmetrical starfish with bulls-eyes around it; Symmetrical V done with running stitch; Spiral dyed in pie sections.

My friend who I am always making baby stuff for also has an almost-two-year-old so I bought a package of 2T/3T plain white T-shirts to dye.  Both these and the onesies are found in the baby section.

This one is probably too purple for a little boy, but I really like the way the double spiral came out.  I also like how this one has a lot more white. Dyeing such small shirts it is hard not to add too much dye, so most of mine didn't end up with much white space left.

The one was a spiral dyed in pie sections.  The lime and aqua are definitely my favorite color combo.  One of the interesting things I noticed is that the thread remained white after dying, in both the onesies and the shirts.  I suppose that's because it's synthetic? Still weird considering there doesn't seem to be much these dyes won't stick to.  I dyed out concrete porch, the wooden porch rail, the inside of our dryer, and my hands! (Don't do what I did, protect yourself and your surfaces from dye! I'm just a slow learner.)

This shirt was dyed the same as the starfish onesie, using the running stitch symmetry technique.

I did all these with a Tulip 5-color "Luau" dye kit. The kit comes with one refill for each color, so I still have enough to do at least this many again. They also sell individual colors, so I think I may add yellow to my set.  Amanda recommended to use soda ash to help the colors stay bright, but I wasn't able to find any locally.  I went on without it and was completely happy with the colors I got, but I am looking forward to trying this again with soda ash to see the difference.

I know I've said it several times, but you really must click over to Amanda's blog and see all the great designs she and her family made. It will inspire you to get busy and get dying, too!

Since wrapping up her Tie-Dye extravaganza, Amanda's next project is A Week of Quilt Tutorials July 22-27th.  I am thrilled to have been invited to participate in this one :)  Look for a revamp of my Simple Strips and Scrappy Herringbone baby quilts on the 24th and check in all week to see all the tutorials.

Linking up to Finish it Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts :)