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It's summer here in northern California. Some days, its pushing triple digits around here. Bear that I am, I'm just too bloody well insulated. I need some lighter clothes for this weather. Scrub shirts for work seemed the perfect answer and given my personal penchant for tie dye (no, I am NOT trapped in the 70's. It's fucking wearable art, thank you very much!) tie dyed scrubs seem to be just what the doctor ordered. (Y'all can groan now.)
I did some hunting on the net, as all the scrubs I'd found locally were more polyester than cotton. Poly does not take dye. If any of you have ever looked at the overlocked seems of a tie dyed tee, you'll likely find lily white thread. Almost all the thread used these days is 100% genuine polyester, even if the fabric its holding together is 100% cotton. SO, a after a long session on line, I succeeded in scoring both scrub tops and scrub sets in my size, that are good durable 100% DYE-ABLE cotton. They arrived last Tuesday.
Got up this morning and went up to my loft, to shorten the scrub pants. Will somebody please tell me why every scrub manufacturer assumes that any fat person stands nothing less than 6'6"? After the sewing was finished, I got the stuff that might have fabric treatments on them that could impare the dyeing process, into the wash with synthropol detergent, then started getting out the dye supplies. That's when Rob arrived with his kids.
His girls are 12 and 13, and both absolute delights. The chance to do some dying for theselves was s real draw. I love watching people the first time they try to put color to fabric. There was also a real boon for me here. While the kids and their father mixed up dyes per my instructions, I got to fold and tie things, getting them ready for the dye 'pot'. I feel like Tom Sawyer. For once, I did very little of the 'grunt' work myself. Whee!
Once the colors were almost mixed, I sat the kids down to watch "Tie Dye 101". This video is nothing short of shear genius. Its a 'must' for people who want to be serious about tie dye production. The tips I garnered from this series (there's 201 and 301, as well) let me get out of my own way. Since I love to work with a large color palate (come on guys, it's art!), mixing up dyes used to take most of the first day of the dye experience; most of the color, actually got put onto the fabrics on day #2, and most got washed out on day#3. Thanks to tips on how to mix dyes efficiently, mixing them now takes less than half the time it used to. Moreover, I now use a microwave to set the dyes, so things are ready to get rinsed out in 5 minutes, rather than 24 hours. I got 14 projects completed today, mostly for myself, though I did manage to get 4 gifts done. What's more, I'm quite pleased with most of what I produced.
The project that thrilled me the most is a rayon dress I did for a bay area leatherwoman, who's a tireless fundraiser for all sorts of charities, including a large number that are 'family' oriented. I'd been working on ideas for patterns for this dress and how I'd execute them, for weeks. Ultimately, one of the ideas I had for her, became a variation for one of my scrub shirts, though of different colors than I had planned for her. Her dress is an homage to the leather pride flag. The main field of the dress is black, with a downward chevron in cobalt, white and fire red, starting just below the bust, and with a large blood red heart centered above the chevron. The heart's color and form is perfect, and the chevron's narrow enough that it provides a nice color break in the black field, without being too busy. I cannot wait to see her face when she gets it.
I did some hunting on the net, as all the scrubs I'd found locally were more polyester than cotton. Poly does not take dye. If any of you have ever looked at the overlocked seems of a tie dyed tee, you'll likely find lily white thread. Almost all the thread used these days is 100% genuine polyester, even if the fabric its holding together is 100% cotton. SO, a after a long session on line, I succeeded in scoring both scrub tops and scrub sets in my size, that are good durable 100% DYE-ABLE cotton. They arrived last Tuesday.
Got up this morning and went up to my loft, to shorten the scrub pants. Will somebody please tell me why every scrub manufacturer assumes that any fat person stands nothing less than 6'6"? After the sewing was finished, I got the stuff that might have fabric treatments on them that could impare the dyeing process, into the wash with synthropol detergent, then started getting out the dye supplies. That's when Rob arrived with his kids.
His girls are 12 and 13, and both absolute delights. The chance to do some dying for theselves was s real draw. I love watching people the first time they try to put color to fabric. There was also a real boon for me here. While the kids and their father mixed up dyes per my instructions, I got to fold and tie things, getting them ready for the dye 'pot'. I feel like Tom Sawyer. For once, I did very little of the 'grunt' work myself. Whee!
Once the colors were almost mixed, I sat the kids down to watch "Tie Dye 101". This video is nothing short of shear genius. Its a 'must' for people who want to be serious about tie dye production. The tips I garnered from this series (there's 201 and 301, as well) let me get out of my own way. Since I love to work with a large color palate (come on guys, it's art!), mixing up dyes used to take most of the first day of the dye experience; most of the color, actually got put onto the fabrics on day #2, and most got washed out on day#3. Thanks to tips on how to mix dyes efficiently, mixing them now takes less than half the time it used to. Moreover, I now use a microwave to set the dyes, so things are ready to get rinsed out in 5 minutes, rather than 24 hours. I got 14 projects completed today, mostly for myself, though I did manage to get 4 gifts done. What's more, I'm quite pleased with most of what I produced.
The project that thrilled me the most is a rayon dress I did for a bay area leatherwoman, who's a tireless fundraiser for all sorts of charities, including a large number that are 'family' oriented. I'd been working on ideas for patterns for this dress and how I'd execute them, for weeks. Ultimately, one of the ideas I had for her, became a variation for one of my scrub shirts, though of different colors than I had planned for her. Her dress is an homage to the leather pride flag. The main field of the dress is black, with a downward chevron in cobalt, white and fire red, starting just below the bust, and with a large blood red heart centered above the chevron. The heart's color and form is perfect, and the chevron's narrow enough that it provides a nice color break in the black field, without being too busy. I cannot wait to see her face when she gets it.
