Dyeing

In June, I dyed up some fitted diapers that I bought used from a friend. I’ll be selling these back into our local cloth diaper community at our fall Cloth Diaper Garage Sale.

Then I dyed two shirts for Genna to replace the two that she outgrew before she got to wear them. The ones she outgrew were better, lol. They’re the two shirts in this post. They are on their way to be auctioned off at the Friends of Iowa Midwives fundraiser on Labor Day.

 

Then a friend had a tie dyeing party, and I made a few things there. I did learn that I cannot dye with friends. I am not as focused, I am sloppier, and I make a lot of mistakes. You can see the yellow spots on the sleeve of the second shirt there.

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Baby Shirts

I really enjoyed making these. I had a TON of these shirts from when Wally was a baby. He really never wore them, and Genna didn’t wear them, so I didn’t want to put them back in the Newborn Clothes bin. Instead, Wally and I low water immersion dyed them (in little cups). I’ll be taking them to Oh, Baby tomorrow (Methodist Hospital, be there!) and then, if they don’t sell there, listing them at Etsy.

Silk Dyeing

So. I’d read a bit about dyeing silk, and how it CAN be done with the dyes I already have – fiber-reactive dyes. But that those dyes may shift or the results might be unexpected. And I guess I didn’t read much about exactly HOW one might dye silk with the fiber-reactive dyes. I just gave it a shot. I bought four silk squares to make playsilks for Wally.

The first one, I did low-water immersion dyeing with red dye. It turned out BEAUTIFUL. I didn’t photograph it and it went missing shortly after it was washed out. (I’ve since found it. Wally was playing with it. yay.)

So, I figured, alright! This is easy! And dyed the other three. The one on the left in the picture is a nice lemon yellow, as it was supposed to be. The middle one was supposed to be purple, but is instead a kind of raspberry with streaks of green, which is alright. The one on the right was supposed to be Kelly Green. mmm hmmm.

I will PROBABLY try that Kelly Green one again, but with a different color.

Clearly, if I were going to make more (which I’m not), I really should get silk dyes.

More Batik

I also batiked some more hankies. I haven’t gotten into any overly complex designs with the batik. Some day when I don’t have to batik with littles at my feet, maybe! But I’m digging these simple designs for now. I particularly like how the dye turned out on these – I tub dyed them, but I used a very small amount of water – enough to submerge the items, but barely. It made the dye kind of variegated – there are light smudges, and dark smudges, instead of just one solid color.

Tie Dye Prefolds Now Available on Etsy

As some of you already know, I sometimes list diapering or babywearing items over at Etsy. Right now, I have some super fun, super funky tie dye prefolds listed over there. Three for $14, with free shipping. If you want them added on to your Wallypop order, just send me an email!