Production Work

Because I am not much on the production end of Tie Dyeing, I have spent the last 20 years teaching others. Last year was the first year I applied to sell at a craft fair. Our local Arts Center puts one on at Thanksgiving and takes care of collecting and paying the state sales tax. I was encouraged to apply and was surprised actually to be accepted. It is after all just 'tie dye.'

As luck would have it, I sold enough to make it worth my while. Instead of all new t-shirts I look for blanks to dye at thrift stores. I look for high end natural fiber items that have been donated. This serves both the ideas of reuse and supporting a variety of non profits. With the economy the way it is though more people are shopping at thrift stores and thrift stores are charging higher prices. I am finding that these days I can buy new cheaper than thrift. But I like the variety of styles so I keep looking.

I dye 12-15 items a week, spending about 3 hours on the tie-ing and dye-ing one day and 2-3 hours tending the washing machine the next. While my blanks are soaking in soda ash in the washer I choose my pallet of colors. I then choose the color combinations and how I will fold them, making a list so I can recreate a pattern or combination if I particularily like it. The dyeing then is routine because the thinking has already been done. Once the dye is applied they go into plastic bags and batch overnight.