Origami Revisited

Recently I wrote about how I was experimenting with origami paper and pushpins to come up with new tie-dye patterns. I had tied one design according to the paper pattern, but I hadn't gotten around to dyeing it yet:


This was the pattern I was (sort of) aiming for:


I finally got around to dyeing the bedsheet I had folded, and here is the result:

I didn't get quite enough dye into all the folds, so there is a bit more white than I would like, but you can see that the pattern actually came out quite a bit like the paper one!

Of course, if I have a tie-dyed top sheet, I need to dye the rest of the sheet set to match. So I folded and tied up the fitted sheet semi-randomly (that is, no particular plan but similar folding techniques), and it came out like this:

Here is the matching pillowcase:

I had a couple hand towels and washcloths handy, so I dyed them too:

One disadvantage of all-cotton sheet sets is that they wrinkle like crazy. Since I'm still practicing my "done is better than perfect" policy, I haven't bothered to iron them. But these pictures get the idea across, and my kids don't care--they've already started arguing over who should get these sheets!

Origami Paper, Tie-dye, and Birthday Parties

I first started doing tie-dye six years ago, when my older daughter wanted a tie-dye theme for her sixth-birthday party. I did some reading, a friend pointed out the Dharma website, I got some supplies, I tried it out a couple of weeks in advance, it came out well, and I was hooked.

Since then I've helped about a thousand people do tie-dye: more than 500 first graders, a couple of Girl Scout troops, several birthday and other parties, my class for middle schoolers, several kids' day camp and family camp sessions, three corporate team-building events, and lots of random sessions with friends. I love doing tie-dye as a hobby, but I'm actually more interested in teaching it to other people. I have no interest in doing it as a production-and-craft-fairs profession--Harmony can do a much better job, and I recognize their distinctive work on people all over town.

I've mentioned before how I like to sneak in a little education when I teach people how to do tie-dye. Math, spatial skills, and so on. They get practice in colors and manual dexterity. And of course I think doing tie-dye is good for the soul, too. No, buying the mass-market tie-dye t-shirts at the local big-box store doesn't count.

Origami (paper folding) and kirigami (paper cutting) are similar crafts that exercise those same mental and physical "muscles". I did lots of origami as a kid, and I loved it. I've also done some kirigami; those paper snowflakes I did in school were just the beginning. True, you don't end up with the same wearable results as with tie-dye (including shibori), but visualizing how the project is going to turn out is half the fun for all three crafts, as is the pleasure (for me) of folding materials precisely.

Lately I've been playing with origami paper as a quick and concrete way to visualize how various folds might come out in tie-dye. The basic paper is cheap, thin, colorful, and easy to fold (I get 60 sheets for $1.50 USD at the local Daiso store). I've been folding it up in various wedges, squares, or rectangles, then piercing it in patterns using a push-pin into a small block of firm packaging foam. I particularly like the foam that feels a little soft and waxy (not Styrofoam/polystyrene), but anything you can easily push a pin into will work fine.


I put the resulting pierced "snowflakes" up on a window so I can see the light pattern through them (dark paper colors work best), and they are very pretty.


My kids joined in, of course, producing some beautiful ones of their own. My younger daughter folded her paper in random directions before piercing it, and she came out with some very intriguing designs.

These paper creations were so easy, so fun, so cheap, and so clean (no cut-out pieces to sweep up!) that I added them to the activities roster for my younger daughter's ninth birthday party (a crafts theme, naturally) a couple weeks ago. It was a definite hit with most of the kids. For the goody bags (party favors), I sent home the foam blocks and push-pins the kids used, along with a fresh packet of origami paper for each child, in hope that they might do some more later and keep flexing those brains.

Now I'm starting to work on translating a few of those paper designs into tie-dye.


I'm using the fold-along-a-drawn-line technique shown in both of my favorite DVDs about tie-dye:

• "Learn How to Tie Dye: Complete 3 Volume Set" available from Dharma or Amazon
• "The Art of Tie-Dye" available from Dharma or Amazon

Sometimes I'm stitching the designs with dental floss, sometimes I'm just tying the designs without stitching. The more complex designs need to be stitched so they don't slip apart.

I haven't dyed any of these yet, and they won't come out exactly like the paper patterns, but I'll post them when I do. In the meantime, try out some paper pattern piercing!

Dressing for Success

Some friends of mine recently got married. When I got their invitation, the immediate thought (wail, more like) was "I haven't got a thing to wear!"

For the last several years I have pretty much always worn at least some tie-dye, usually a tie-dyed shirt and tie-dyed socks with blue jeans, or a tie-dyed "farmer's dress", or whatever. It's not a religious thing, but I like the bright colors, I have a lot of it, and it's comfortable. The last wedding I went to was a tie-dyed affair anyhow, so I was fine wearing one of my tie-dyed casual dresses (the one in my picture to the right with the bears-in-heart tapestry).

But this wedding was going to be a formal-to-semi-formal affair with dancing! My usual togs just wouldn't do. The groom-to-be and I joked about my having to pull out my formal tie-dye ("no, no, it only has to be semi-formal"). Pretty soon, it had to happen: I had to make myself a very fancy tie-dyed dress.

Designing

Designing the dress was fun. I had set myself a couple of constraints: the dress had to be tie-dyed, and it had to be silk (to lend it formality). Further, I would make it (almost) exclusively from silk charmeuse scarves from Dharma. With that decision, I could easily make prototypes of the dress. I also decided to make it a two-piece dress so it would be easier to get in and out of (and so I could wear the skirt with different tops later). I had been hankering to make myself a handkerchief-hem skirt for a while, too, so that became part of the design.

I started with paper towels and one of my favorite models, Barbie. Barbie is very cooperative for such endeavors--I have been making clothes for her since I was a kid. A little tape, some snips here and there, and soon we had a couple of prototypes (my daughter did one too).


I took the best prototype picture, massaged it a bit, and made what was essentially a coloring book page of it.


I borrowed my daughter's oil pastels and played with colors. So did my kids! I did the upper set.


Dyeing

I got a bunch of silk charmeuse scarves. The eight skirt pieces (two layers of four scarves each) were tied to make a diagonal stripe, while the others were done as diagonal stripes or X's. I also tied a sash.


I dyed them all using diluted turquoise, turquoise, electric blue, and strong navy and left them covered overnight.

Constructing

Once the scarves were dyed, washed, and dried, they made a glorious armful of colored silk. The white appeared on some scarves (but not all) where the dye hadn't penetrated. I had been aiming for a little white. The strong navy color came out purple (because I was dyeing silk instead of cotton), but fortunately purple is fine with me. After all, I always tell my students that tie-dye NEVER turns out exactly how you expect!


Now it was time to start putting them together. Easier said than done!

These are the eight scarves that will become the skirt.


I found information on "Making An 8-Point Skirt" on the web. I aligned each set of four scarves with the turquoise sections forming the diagonals of the squares as below, sewed each set together into a square, and put in the elastic waistband. I used 1.25-inch-wide elastic to give the waistband some strength. Those eight silk charmeuse 35" scarves make the skirt quite heavy!



Here is the skirt.
This is the top. The body of the top is essentially a tank top that is attached to the collar at the neck opening. The body is made of one 44" scarf that I cut in half diagonally. I used an existing tank top that I had as a pattern for the scarf pieces for the body.


The collar is one more 35" scarf set diagonally on the body. Since 35" was too big, I cut it in quarters and sewed it back together after taking part out of the middle (so it would preserve the turquoise sections). I essentially removed a thick "plus" ( + ) from the middle of the scarf. It has a V-neckline in the front and a more squared neckline in the back, and it can be worn either way.

Here you can see the blue broadcloth lining and the interfacing I used to give the collar layer a bit more stiffness and fullness. The body part is not lined, since it is very thick silk.


The Results

I finished the dress with only about five minutes to spare before I had to dress to go to the wedding! Here I am at the wedding in the dress.


The dress definitely didn't come out the way I expected it to, but I'm pretty pleased with it. I've worn it to three fancy occasions now (in less than a month!), and I expect to wear it a lot more.

I didn't expect the purple (short) sections to stick out the way they do--I think it's because I used such thick silk, so those sections don't have anywhere else to fall to. However, the weight of that heavy silk makes the skirt really flare out during turns and spins, which I love! I love ballroom dancing, especially swing and waltz, and this is definitely a great skirt for that. It's also got that gorgeous glossy silk glow that I like--it fills some of those Barbie doll dress fantasies I never quite grew out of.

I just wish the Barbie doll figure came with the dress!

Dog

Okay, here are the gratuitous dog pictures:

Ooh, she sees silk on the floor... "must go shed on it..."


"Isn't this turquoise just my color?"


Sorry, Lacey, the skirt is a little too big for you!

Progress in Various Directions...

Well, the jeans circle quilt still isn't done, but Lacey is pleased to point out that I've now got all the colored pieces arranged to my liking. It took several days, partly because I wanted to let it rest (kind of like bread dough) for a day or so and then look at it again and rearrange a few pieces. I did that process a few times until I was happy with it (or sick of it, anyhow!).


If you look in the upper right corner of the picture, you can see the baby fence I put around the quilt to keep Lacey off it. It was totally useless; the moment I opened it to go in (I'm too short to climb over easily), she was right there in the middle of the quilt, waiting to have her picture taken!

Now I'm slowly pinning in the batting pieces as I watch the Olympics on TV (one of my current distractions).

One of my other distractions recently has been playing with shibori itajime dyeing (Japanese tie-dyeing with clamps or objects clamped to material). I did a fair amount of shibori work, including stitch resist, binding, and clamping, when I first started doing tie-dye, and off and on ever since. I love the possibilities it provides, and I especially love the surprises that result from folding and clipping the fabric in various ways.

Here are a few of the experimental "play" pieces I did a few days ago. With the shooting star and the butterfly I'm experimenting with using shibori in a more representational manner.


By the way, if you are interested in any of the baby rompers, I've got them in my Etsy shop at http://amethistle.etsy.com. Much as they liked these, my own kids outgrew such things ages ago, and I'm working through my stash of white blanks. Sorry, my husband has already nabbed the big T-shirt!

When Is One Color More than One Color?

One of the things about Procion dyes for tie-dye is that they are usually made up of other colors of dye. Sometimes they separate or bleed into their component colors, producing an outer halo effect at the edges of the dyed area (similar to chromatography experiments I did in school). Not all colors do this, and the ones that do separate don't do it all the time.

Most professional tie-dyers use thickener with their dyes. This especially applies to the dyers that mass produce tie-dye for wholesale and silkscreening. The thickener primarily keeps the dyes from spreading too fast, and it prevents them from blending much with the adjoining colors, but it also stops the separation or bleeding.

In fact, one way I can easily spot a "store-bought" shirt is by looking at how much bleeding or blending the shirt has. If there isn't any, it's probably store-bought. The other thing I look for is the density of color. Store-bought shirts usually have very little or no white on them--it's all perfectly colored.

It's useful to create a color sampler with the colors of dye you're using (as Dharma says, "test, test, TEST!"). If you do it without thickener, you can get an idea of what separates and what doesn't. Here on my test T-shirt (T-shirts are cheap!), I found that a mixture of fuchsia and lemon yellow gave a great yellow halo, and chocolate brown bled bluish, for example.

Once you know the bleeding properties of a color or mixture, you can plan to use that feature to good effect. My favorite bleeding colors are the purples, such as Dharma's "blue violet", which usually produce a pretty blue edge. Here I've colored this entire shibori shirt in blue violet. I didn't add any blue, but the blue seeped under the clamps I used to create the resist pattern and gave me that beautiful halo effect. This is one of my favorite shirt designs.

Happy experimenting!

With Help from the Dog

The latest on the jeans circle quilt:

I've got all the colored fabric squares cut out, as well as all the squares of batting (lots of them, since I decided to use a double layer). I've got my new red thread for sewing it all together.

Now I'm on the long step of figuring out where each colored square goes in the overall quilt, since each square is unique (the nature of tie-dye, of course). I expect this phase will take me several days, and the sewing will take another several days. Of course, that doesn't even count the pinning: 221 squares, at least 4 pins per square--I think I'd better go get some more pins! I'm throwing out a lot of them, too, since the pins are bending easily as I force them through all the thick layers of denim and batting.

The sewn-together-and-ironed-over circles look pretty good, but I have a minor case of "blank canvas syndrome", where I just can't decide where to start!

Fortunately, I'm getting some help. I let my younger daughter try laying out a pattern, and she did a pretty good first cut:

Now I can move forward, since I have an initial design to work from or work against (mine is likely to be completely different, but hers gives me something to rearrange). In the meantime, I'm getting a little too much help from Lacey!


She always manages to pick a background that looks good on her. She thinks the quilt is for her anyhow, so she's making sure she likes it...


I guess it's hard work being that cute all the time!

Project Managment and Artistic Challenges

I knew when I took on the jeans circle quilt project that it was big and that it would take a lot of work (no, it's not done yet!). But like any big project, it's also subject to project planning and constant reevaluation.

One of my friends recently asked me what percentage of the project was finished. He's been spending way too much of his time doing project management in the last few years! But I was able to figure out that I was maybe 30% percent along at the time, after about 6 weeks.

I've recently been spending a greater percentage of my time on the project, rather than just cutting circles while waiting for my kids at chorus practice and such, so it has been speeding up a bit. I've now gotten all the circles sewn together into three sections for easier handling going forward (in this picture it is 11 sections).

However, having reached that milestone, I'm doing what drives project managers (and workers) crazy all over the world--dropping the project completely for a while while I focus on other projects.

In the meantime, I did another favorite task of project managers: the prototype. I made a separate 9-circle square prototype quilt. I found a bandana similar to the tie-dyed sheet I'm planning to cut up, got the batting, got the fancy shiny variegated thread I'm planning to use, and put them all together.


I tried out various stitches, widths and lengths of stitches, and so on. The prototype itself took quite a while (as they often do). In this case, though, it was very valuable to do the prototype (as it often is). I learned a lot from it. I wish I had done it sooner, as it has also opened up the project to a lot of reevaluation. Roughly translated, I hate the results of the prototype!


As part of the reevaluation I've decided I hate the shiny variegated thread. It looks too busy with everything else, and it's slippery and extremely hard to work with. So I'll be going with navy blue cotton thread instead. I've also decided I want thicker batting, so it's back to the store for that, too.

So once I get back to the project, I can pick back up on my project planning and keep my friends informed! What I still have to do is just cut up the colored fabric into squares for the other side, cut the batting too, and put it all together (I figure just arranging the fabric squares to a pleasing design will take me two or three days of work!).

Et voila! Instant quilt! Yeah, right! Maybe by December...

Did Galileo Do Tie-Dye?

I spent the whole day today doing one of the things I enjoy most: teaching tie-dye to lots of kids.

I was at my daughter's summer camp, Galileo Summer Quest, which is a new program here for middle school kids. It's not "school", but it's a seriously educational program. Kids spend time doing things like learning how to make digital movies (from storyboards to shooting to editing on the computer) and learning leadership and collaboration skills. They also spend a period of each day doing more recreational activities like playing extreme hopscotch and foursquare--that's where the tie-dye comes in (besides, it is camp!).

Galileo Summer Quest is a great camp for nerd kids--or kids whose parents want them to be nerd kids! Or both, in my daughter's case--(wipes away tear)--I'm SO proud! I'm a nerd too, of course. But the question arises: is there anything educational and intellectual about tie-dye?

Absolutely! In my pre-dye lectures to the middle schoolers, I manage to sneak in just a little brain work. There's a little botany/biology: the Procion dyes bond to the cellulose in the cotton shirts, and where can you find cellulose? Cell walls in plants. There is a little chemistry in the reaction of the dyes with the soda ash (a basic solution) and the cellulose. And there is math: we spend time talking about how folds relate to the lines of symmetry, and how the stripes of colors relate to the folding, in the final design. We did X, V, stripe, and diamond designs. The kids (and counselors) really have to apply their spatial skills to wrap their heads around how the diamond and the X patterns come from almost the same folds.

Who knew tie-dye was so intellectual? Galileo would be proud.

What Do You Mean, "Soak It"?

One thing that often happens, especially in the uncontrollable chaos of group tie-dyeing at YMCA family camp, is that someone will carefully tie his or her piece and start dyeing it, then hear me telling someone else to go soak their tied piece in the bucket of soda ash solution.

"What do you mean, 'soak it'? I didn't do that..."

Thus begins a process I call a "rescue". The Procion fiber reactive dyes I use need the soda ash to make the color bond to the fibers in the fabric, making the colors permanent. What I usually do for these cases is place the dyed piece in an empty bucket and pour some of the soda ash solution over it (one year a camper dumped her blue piece in the main soda ash bucket on top of other pieces that were soaking. They all got dyed pale blue!) and let it soak. I then have the owner put more dye on to counteract the small amount of washing out that happens when we soak it.

The Experiment

This rescue process seems to work well enough, but I was curious as to how much of a difference it really made. So while I was there at camp, I tried an experiment. I tied three identical prewashed cotton bandanas the same way. I soaked one in soda ash, then I dyed all three the same way. The other two were dyed without soda ash. I took one of those two and did a "rescue", pouring soda ash over it and then adding more dye. I then let them sit overnight and washed as usual. So my three bandanas are the "control" (usual process), the "no soda ash", and the "rescue".

One initial observation: I generally dislike dyeing dry fabric, with or without soda ash (some people advocate soaking tied items in soda ash, drying them out and then dyeing). Even if the item is prewashed, the dye often beads up, runs off in unwanted directions, or pools up. Once it does soak in, it tends to spread unevenly. With the soda-ash-soaked bandana, the dye goes in smoothly and spreads more evenly, while I have to pretty much force the dye into the two dry bandanas.

The Results

There was a distinct difference among the three finished bandanas after I washed them out, though not quite as much difference as I expected. In the following picture, the "control" (usual soda ash soaking) sample is on the left, the "rescue" is on the right, and the one in the middle has no soda ash at all. The middle sample is definitely more dull and faded-looking than the other two, especially for the dark cobalt blue triangles on the sides. They are at least a shade lighter than their counterparts on the other bandanas. The "rescue" sample has more vibrant colors than the untreated sample, though it lacks the definition of the "control" sample.


I think part of the difference in pattern definition between the rescue and control samples may be due to dyeing on dry fabric--the dye absorption and spreading properties are different. Also, when the dyed "rescue" sample is soaked in soda ash after dyeing, the soda ash solution may be spreading the dye, blurring the whiter areas you see in the "control" sample. The re-dyeing after soaking may also aggravate the blurring.

Here is another picture where you can see the differences more directly (click on the picture to see a larger version).


Conclusions

It's clear that the best process for nice sharp tie-dye is to soak the item in soda ash before dyeing it. However, given that mistakes often happen, I think doing the "rescue" process is preferable over just going without the soda ash, so I'll continue to recommend that as necessary.

One further thing I want to do is to wash all three bandanas a couple more times. I know from experience that I won't see much change in the colors for the two that had soda ash, but I wonder if the untreated bandana will show visible washing out of the colors. I'll be doing a lot of
tie-dye washing in the next week or so, so I'll put an update out later.

Epi-dog (Gratuitous Dog Picture)

Once again, my dog Lacey, knowing how fabulous she looks on tie-dye, decided to help me out when she saw me getting ready to take tie-dye pictures! That's the "rescue" sample.


Aaaawwww...

The Things People Wear

I've been talking with some friends lately about life in a fifth grade class. Even at age 10, several of the girls have already become slaves to fashion and the popularity contest. Specifically, they strongly prefer to wear T-shirts where the name of the brand is splashed across the front of the shirt: Abercrombie & Fitch, Aeropostale, Hollister, American Eagle Outfitter, and the like. Some of them even put down other people because the others get clothes at places like - gasp - Target! Parental explanations of how the girls are advertising those trendy brands by wearing logo shirts - and paying dearly for the privilege - fall on deaf ears.

My discussions got me to thinking about some anti-trend statements. I poked around on the web for a bit and found a place where you can make custom t-shirts or buy designs others have done. I created a couple of satirical t-shirt designs here on a website called Zazzle.



Okay, it's not tie-dye, but it was fun. The "American Sheep" shirt says "Follow the Flock" on the back, and the "Abercowmbie" shirt says "Follow the Herd" on the back.

My general anti-logo leanings are nothing new. One of my favorite pieces is a "Polo by Ralph Lauren" polo shirt that I found at Goodwill and then dyed tied up in kite string. It's fun to get an expensive trendy brand name shirt and make it your own.


You'll never find this shirt at your local mall! I can just see ol' Ralph cringing...