How have I become the Tie Dye Queen? I did not set out to be the one who always has wrinkled purple fingers ...
Day 2 each child brought in a white shirt, and we tie-dyed. We used rubber bands and marbles, tied straight horizontal lines, sunbursts, and circles. (Note for the future: Some of the under-6 crowd have no idea how to stretch a rubber band around something. Now I remember - my daughter could not do ponytails herself until she was about 7 years old. If not for the 3 teenage helpers with this group, we would have taken all day.)
The dying table. When I tie-dyed with 7 children, we did some multi-color shirts. With almost 30, we dunked each shirt in 1 color only. I've used Rit, Dylon, and Tulip fabric dyes. I think we like Tulip best. The colors are bright and seem to fade less. Their Turquoise was a favorite.
It was also water day. That's good planning.
This is the shirt that nearly ran us out of marbles. We had to rinse, wring, and undo several shirts so that Groups 3 and 4 could put their shirts together. (See my red face? We had some record June temps last week. It was hot, hot hot! )
We put the shirts under the solar clothes dryer.
I have tie-dyed twice this year with smaller groups. It is a lot of work to do this with big groups. The rinsing and wringing seem unending! My fingers are still cramping. I think, "No way! Not again!" And then parents start telling me how this was their child's favorite craft, and I know I'll do it again.
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