Monday, November 6, 2017

Complex Folds - Star Tie Dye


One of the most popular videos I released since Ryder's birth is a video called "Let's Tie Dye T-shirts!" I did a simple accordion fold on the diagonal and created some fairly monochromatic T-shirts for my college reunion.


I have a long history of loving tie dyeing.  In 4th grade, my class raised money for the local Humane Society by selling tie dyed T-shirts.  We dyed almost weekly and sold shirts, socks, and other cotton items to family and friends.  In college, the chemistry department would have an annual tie dyeing activity.

An approximation of how the folds work to create a star shape

I wanted to try to step outside of my comfort zone and try a complicated fold to create a star on the front of a shirt.  How hard could this be?  It was actually pretty hard to fold shirts into fifths.  You can hear me mention what take I'm on in the filming and then wonder how to proceed with tying up the shirt with rubber bands.


In the following video, I demonstrate the fold first on a piece of paper and then on the shirts themselves.  I fold four different shirts which gave me four different chances to end up with a star.  For the four shirts (two kids XS and two 18 month onesies), I used two full bottles of Tulip One-Step Tie Dye.  I think I might have been able to stretch the dye onto three shirts, but the package (of 3 bottles, I didn't use the yellow), indicated that there was enough for six projects.  I think it would be hard to use two bottles on four adult T-shirts.


If this works, I might try to do this live sometime in the future.  Or at least maybe I can go live for the reveal, if I can figure out how to set up my camera to see my bathroom sink!  (I was able to make a live reveal work!  Check it out below.)


Going Live for the reveal was so much fun!  There were some growing pains (I edited out over 3 minutes from the beginning of the feed when I was trying to figure out why my static link didn't work.)  However, I got stars!  Many of you got to experience the joy of a successful crafting project along with me.  How fun! 


My favorite shirts are the ones with the star design only on the front of the shirt.  I feel liek the overall design is much more defined.  


It is now November and the boys have worn these shirts A LOT.  Rowdy might not fit into his much longer, but we'll try to get as much use out of it as we can!  


The other two shirts look a lot more like starfish than stars, but that is still super cool.  My kids never ended up wearing these shirts, so I guess I'll have to find a sibling pair to share these with someday. 


A brand new Tie Dye T-shirt video will come out on Friday morning.  In fact, the video is exporting as I finish up writing this post!  What do you think I'm going to dye this time?

 


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