I have a new washing machine (hooray!) and a newly enlarged overdraft (boo!) so I am now reasonably confident my machine is washing things at the temperature it says it is. I think the old one washed everything on cold and I think all my fiddling with its dial and rebooting of the motherboard (this involved crawling behind the freezer every time I wanted to wash something, you have no idea of the conditions I am forced to work in here, no idea) was actually pointless and only done to make me feel more in control. Like many things. Anyway, this is important, as it means I can now tie-dye and put my finished articles through a good hot wash afterwards to make sure they are colourfast. Because previously I was feeling nervous about selling someone a tie-dyed tshirt and them taking it off in the evening – perhaps seductively, with an erotic flourish and a coy glance - to reveal a big coloured spiral right across their middle. And I think that would have a detumescent effect. (I know we don’t normally think of tie dye in an erotic context but I think it’s nice to expand our horizons).
So I am frenziedly tie dyeing. So far I have tie dyed the wall, my elbow, a dish I hadn’t put away, and the floor. The white cat from 2 doors down is hanging about thoughtfully outside, and he’d be well advised not to come any closer (wouldn’t that look pretty though? A tie dyed white cat? I promise I won’t).
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| It looks (relatively) tidy, but we were in chaos |
These are my tshirts I did yesterday, all tied up and dyed,
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| Don't ever say my photographs aren't fascinating. Tomorrow: paint drying. |
And these are the same tshirts in the washing machine. I was a little bit nervous about the pink water, but it ran clear in the end – and here they are!
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| Hooray! They're for the shop but one is for me! |
I’m dyeing some new ones at the moment. I am not sure about the colour combination but that’s the exciting thing with tie dye: you just can’t tell what you’ve got till you’ve opened it up. There you see, that would have been a better saying for Forrest Gump than that daft one about chocolates.
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5 comments:
"that’s the exciting thing with tie dye: you just can’t tell what you’ve got till you’ve opened it up. There you see, that would have been a better saying for Forrest Gump than that daft one about chocolates"
Love it!
Tie dye is on my to do list. Do you leave it all tied up when you wash it?
Looks like loads of fun, very cheerful colours too :D
Kezz - no, you take the ties off after 24 hours (this is how I do it), then you rinse them through and then you wash them. Then you say 'ooh don't they look nice', try them on, wear them and go out instead of photographing them all sensibly and putting them in your etsy shop like you'd promised yourself you would do.
Thanks Mel! Josh, will have a look at your site ;-)
Oh, this is priceless. My husband even muted the football match so I could read him this post out loud, although I had to struggle, I was laughing so much. IS that poor cat still white?
The fabric has come out great, so your elbow and that dish were worth it.
:-)
Yes the cat is still white but I have my plans:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/jun/12/bestshot.tim.walker
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