Tie Dyeing a Large Blanket

Recently we attended the wedding of Steve's cousin Tony and his bride Krystal, And I'm one of those annoying people who likes to give personal gifts instead of just buying something off of a registry, so we decided to make something for them. Well, really I decided to, and Steve really liked the idea. I knew that Tony and Krystal shared our love of tie dye, so I decided to make them a big tie dye blanket. Plus, they were uniting two families with three children between the two of them, so I thought it would be great to give them something that would be part of snuggly family nights.

I started out by buying an organic cotton blanket from Target. I chose cotton because I didn't want to have to do anything extra or elaborate to get the dye to really stick. I chose a twin size because I couldn't find one that was just a throw, and I didn't want it to be huge.

I then headed to Hobby Lobby and bought a large bottle of  dark blue Tulip dye and two packets of black dye refills. I also picked up an extra squeeze bottle. Although I wouldn't combine navy and black in an outfit, I thought that they would compliment each other in the blanket because the black wouldn't be a true black when added to such a large white blanket.

I then tied up the blanket using yarn. I decided to go for a burst pattern, so I simply grabbed a spot remotely near the center, pulled up and started twisting. I wrapped the yarn fairly tightly around as I twisted. I had to be sure not to wrap it too tight because sometimes with new fabric, the dye doesn't absorb well, so I wanted it to be able to easily seep into all of the little nooks and crannies.

Then it was time to actually dye the blanket. Let me just tell you, that was fun. Especially when Cai woke up in the middle of it. I did it in the bathtub, and it looked like I killed a burnt smurf in there. Unfortunately I didn't realize that the refill pack is made so that you can just drop it into the bottle and the packaging will dissolve. Instead, I poured the powder into the bottle and made a big mess. Lesson learned. 

I made sure that I got it as saturated as possible, and I ended up having dye left over. I then wrapped it in plastic wrap and let it sit for eight hours to allow the dye to set. I thought it looked like a huge terd. I know; I'm really mature.

 I followed the package instructions for washing the dye out and checked the results. The pattern was super cool, but it didn't really cover the blanket as well as I wanted it too, so I prepared the rest of the dye, wrapped the blanket up again, making sure that there was a large amount of white exposed when I was done twisting, and dyed it again. This time because I was low on dye, I wet the blanket to kind of spread the dye further. The combination of that and the original dye job gave it a cool layered effect, and I was pretty pleased with it.

You can see the two different dye jobs here. The darker, bluer pattern is the first time, the cloudier, grayer pattern is the second. 

The best part was that the bride loved it. We were still there after many of the guests had left, and they had started opening some gifts, and she nearly tackled me with a hug after she opened it! I love that they loved it!

I Love Tie Dye

If you've been following my blog for awhile, you know that I love color and tie dye. Lucky for me, God blessed me with a husband who wishes he was a hippy and loves tie dye. So when I said last week that I should make Cai some more tie dye, Steve wholeheartedly agreed. Also lucky for me, I turned thirty last week and was gifted a gift card to Hobby Lobby!

Of course, I had a great little helper who laughed every time the dog walked past his stroller (said dog ended up with the white fur on his paws died different colors from walking through the grass where I was working).

I dyed three onesies for Cai, one of my white v-neck t-shirts, one of Steve's t-shirts, a blue oxford shirt from Steve's former job (that's a story for another day), and another of Steve's t-shirts that I planned to cut up to make headbands.

I like a simple burst look in the middle, so for most of the pieces, I grabbed a point on the shirt that I wanted to be the center of the burst and twisted from there, then wrapped it in rubber bands or yarn. For a few of them, I folded them accordion style, then twisted and tied. The kit came with five colors (fuschia, orange, yellow, lime, and turquoise), but I had two extra squirt bottles, so I took some of the extra dye packets and created a blue green color and an indigo. After dying, I wrapped them in plastic wrap to keep them wet while the dye set. I had to take a picture because they looked like big logs of rainbow poo. Yeah, I'm weird.

I was pretty happy with most of the results. I wish I had let the dye sit a little longer (I did about six hours) because some of it faded a little more than I wanted after the wash. My favorites were Steve's tshirt and Cai's blue and rainbow onesies. I think my shirt was a little too worn, so the dye absorbed really well and blended more than I wanted it to. I didn't share any pictures of Steve's old work shirt because the store's logo is still on it. I originally thought I'd be able to just tear off the applique, but it wasn't just sewn on by the edges, but rather embroidered directly onto the shirt. That means I either need to take a buttload of time ripping it off stitch by stitch, or find a way to cover it up.

For the headbands, I just cut the shirt into strips and used them to tie on my head. I also cut off the shirt sleeves and used those as headbands. I took some awkward selfies to show a bit of my shirt and the headbands...

I felt so awkward taking them, that I just a goofy face so that it didn't seem so vain. 

I wanted to show how Cai looks in his onesie, but he's napping right now. This is the only picture I could find that I took this week. He's eating a coaster. Cai putting strange things in his mouth is basically my life right now.

Anybody else love tie dye? Do you wear it or make it or both?

Tie Dye Results

I just finished taking and editing the pictures of last week's tie dye fun! I won't post all of them, but I have to post my favorites. 

The monkey's outline glows in the dark!

LOVE these colors!

Isn't he cute?

I love the earthy colors in this one.

This glows in the dark too!

Guess What I Did Today!

 Can you tell what I did today? I just got done tie-dying twelve onesies and five little t-shirts. I figure it's time I get some new spring "stock" ready for upcoming craft fairs etc. I'm so excited about the colors I used! Hobby Lobby had this great twelve color kit with fuchsia, red, orange, yellow, lime, green, turquoise, blue, violet, purple, brown, and black. The hardest part is waiting until tomorrow to see how they turned out. I hope to spend tomorrow washing and photographing them, and I'll definitely share my favorites on here!