Tie-dye: How to Spruce Up Old T-shirts

One Sunday, Sam asked me what kind of dye is used for tie-dying. How would I know? I wasn’t even familiar with the term “tie-dye.”

I searched Google, discovered that tie-dye is a process of creating patterns on clothes and I remembered that this was an activity that both Sam and Alex did in pre-school.

“Jobos” was what she needed. I’m not sure if that’s how it’s spelled but “jobos” is what we call cheap packets of powdered dye that is dissolved in hot water. Since Speedy and Alex were already in the bookstore for school supplies, I told Sam to text her father because “jobos” can be bought from the art section of the bookstore.

Let’s cut the story short, shall we? I’m too excited to show you what Sam did.

She was actually looking for a plain white t-shirt to work with, I didn’t have any, so she settled for her old P.E. t-shirt. You can see the school logo if you look hard enough. Pretty good!

But, of course, Sam being Sam, with her adrenalin pumping, she couldn’t stop after one t-shirt. She found another old white t-shirt, tie-dyed it, started to really enjoy herself and asked her father to take off the t-shirt that he was wearing so she could tie-dye it too. Speedy refused but went through the pile of newly-laundered clothes and handed Sam two more old white t-shirts. Sam had four colorful shirts by the time she ran out of dye. I promised her we’d buy more dye and NEW plain white t-shirts and they’d all be ready when she comes home next weekend.

Could we also prepare one of the Monobloc tables for her too, she asked. Sure, my dear, I replied. I just love it when she gets creative.

……………….

The following photos were taken a week later. We had run out of old t-shirts for Sam to work on so I bought her some inexpensive plain t-shirts. Speedy bought her more powdered dye in every available color. And, so she could have more control over the designs, she asked for ketchup dispensers. Yes, you read it right. Ketchup dispensers. Or, if you’re a chef who does a lot of food decorating, you might know them as sauce dispensers.

They look like this.

And, no, that’s not a colorful umbrella. That’s the t-shirt being dyed. Sam used rubber bands to separate the areas that she wanted to have different colors.

Then, she used the ketchup dispensers to carefully control where and how much color goes into each area.

That’s her at work on the dining table. She was supposed to do the tie-dying in the garden but it rained over the weekend and she had to stay indoors. I am happy to say that she did not forget to push back the table cloth before laying out her tie-dye paraphernalia.

And that’s one of the completed projects — the very same shirt that was all tied up with rubber bands in the previous photos.

Too many accessories for tie-dyed t-shirts? I thought so too. When Sam and Alex did tie-dyed projects in pre-school, they just dipped the tied portions of the shirts in a basin with colored water. But then Sam isn’t in pre-school anymore. She wanted to execute more complex designs and that called for additional accessories like the ketchup dispensers.

How many shirts did she finish? A lot. A LOT. Sometimes, we’re all wearing tie-dyed t-shirts at home at the same time.