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!

Tie-Dye in the Park with Dogs

I've been having a lot of fun posting pictures lately. It's been first graders for a while, and now it's back to dogs! We went to a park in Santa Rosa over the weekend, and of course had to wear tie-dye and take pictures.

Here is Moxie again, in his green and yellow dog shirt. It's always hard getting a good picture of a very black dog, but he looks good in the sun.

Introducing Cruella

Cruella is a Hairless Chinese Crested Dog belonging to some friends of my mom. Cruella doesn't have any fur other than the bits on her head, ears, legs, and tail, so she gets cold easily, even during the summer. She is used to wearing shirts and sweaters and jackets almost all the time.

I had passed along a tie-dyed dog shirt through my mom, even though I had never met Cruella. A bunch of my mom's friends gather at the park regularly, and it just happened that Cruella happened to come wearing the tie-dye shirt this time. What luck! I finally got to meet Cruella and she's dressed for the occasion!


Cruella is quite the model, isn't she? She's wearing a size Small shirt.


Cruella and Moxie look fabulous together.


Why Do People Keep Calling Us "The Tie-Dye Family"?

Well, I suppose it's better than "The Polka-Dot Family"! As a family, we often wear our brightest, loudest tie-dye clothes when we go out in big public places such as Disney World. It's purely practical--it makes it much easier to keep track of our group ("Are you missing a little girl in tie-dye? She went thataway."). My mom and my father-in-law aren't into the tie-dye thing, but they were good sports for our park outing. I suppose you could consider my mom's shirt shibori rather than strictly tie-dye, but it's close enough.

Finally, a good family picture!

Tie-Dye Group Dynamics

Over Memorial Day weekend, I went to YMCA Camp Jones Gulch Family Camp out under the California redwoods. I'm not much of a hiker, and I hate riding horses (the knees are just not flexible enough anymore), so I usually spend much of my weekend hanging out in the crafts area. The last few times I've gone to family camp, I've actually volunteered and run a tie-dye activity there, and I did it this time too.

I have done large groups several times, but there are different dynamics depending on the group.

The Whole First Grade, for the Fifth Year

When I work with my first graders, I'm working with a relatively homogeneous group. I have volunteer parent helpers and the teachers to keep things under control. It's pretty much a class project like any other, and the kids are expected to pay attention to the lecture and then do what they are supposed to. The kids get to make choices about how they want to fold their own shirt (which of three folding patterns) and what colors they want to use, but they all work pretty much in lockstep. They all fold at the same time, and they all dye at the same time (a class at a time, 5 classes). The results are uniformly decent-to-very-good (and you can tell what pattern they were trying to make), since everyone gets help. The kids love it, especially since they get to keep the finished shirts.

And Off to Family Camp

When I tie-dye at family camp, things are quite different. The group is more diverse in age and ability (kids of all ages, with or without their parents there, a few grandparents). The tying and dyeing are available all day Saturday, and people wander in when they want to, so sometimes it's a rush, and sometimes it's a trickle. I don't really know how many people are going to show up, since they might only come if they have time between other activities and aren't too tired. I think I had around a hundred people wander through, but I don't know for sure.

At family camp, I'm the only tie-dye "expert", and I have one or two counselors dedicated to working on this activity. We can't provide nearly as much help as we do for the first graders. Many people don't want help anyhow--they just want to do their own thing and go wild (such as the nine-or-ten-year-old boy who dyed his shirt by mopping up the puddles of dye left on the table by previous participants--in an example of how unfair the world is, his shirt came out quite nicely!). Many people are making things up as they go along. Some people achieve bold geometric patterns, while others go for random splotches of color. The results vary wildly.

[Me with a counselor, washing out all the tie-dye one year at family camp.]

[This picture shows the samples and instructional posters I put up the first time I taught tie-dye at family camp. These are all my work.]

It's Art and More

Group tie-dye is a very popular activity. In the first grade classes, it's a chance to make art, to make a mess, and to make a shirt of your own. At family camp, it's all of those things and more. The process can be a family bonding activity, and making matching shirts, bandanas, and so on helps bond families further when they all wear and show off the matching clothes.

For some, it's a chance to relive fond memories of doing camp or school activities they did when they were kids themselves, or a chance to catch up on fun they missed when "everyone else was doing it".

Cool.

[A happy camper and her counselor showing off the bandanas the camper made.]