Sharpie Tie-Dye

You have to do this project. I saw this on Happy Things. She saw it on Steve Spangler Science.



You draw on fabric with Sharpies (I suppose you can also use other types of permanent markers. I happen to have a lot of Sharpies.) Draw a design that is at least an inch in diameter. More ink bleeds more. Drip rubbing alcohol into the center of the design and watch the ink bleed out to beautiful effect. More highly concentrated alcohol works better. Look for 70% or more concentrate at the drug store. This is probably what you already have in the cabinet.



I probably have a medicine dropper somewhere, but we just used a straw as a dropper for the rubbing alcohol. Let them dry completely. After a few minutes, we laid ours out on an old towel to dry. To set the color, they must be heat set, but be careful with the iron or the clothes dryer because alcohol is extremely flammable.



We were totally mesmerized by the process and could not stop. I had some white muslin that I cut up to use, but we used that up quick, so I also cut up an old sheet.



We had to quit when the alcohol smell got to us. My daughter already cut up some of our creations to make a card for her teacher. I think we might put some beads onto some of these and stitch them into pretty ornaments. We haven't decided. They would look great in a quilt too!



** Edit: How fun! I was contacted today by Sharpie and Steve Spangler about this project!

Craftster Best of 2008

WooHoo! Craftster put up their Best of 2008 list and my colorful dyed lace made the best of list for Fiber Arts: Dyeing. I blogged the lace project HERE and shared it on Craftster HERE. I used this lace in a bunting for my daughter's birthday.



The Craftster list is a combination of most views and judgment of awesomeness by the moderators so I feel quite honored.

I'm on the list twice! Our Tea Towel Tour Round 3 was the most popular swap of 2008! Rectangel organizes the Tea Towel Tours and she is a huge part of why it is successful. It is not easy to keep everyone on track in a swap like that. My role is a co-organizer and group leader. That's my hapless Owl in the thumbnail pic they used. I stitched this for Fruitloops.



Speaking of stuff like this. I can hardly believe that I have contributed 258 photos of embroidery to the Flickr Embroidery Group. That makes me #3 of the top 5 contributors there (out of 2,826 members). Most of the embroidery is my own although I also share vintage work done by the women in my family and embroidery done for me in the swaps I've participated in. If you look at my submissions, you'll see that I embroider a lot of small felt applique.

Colorful Lace

So colorful! I used this tutorial.



I hung it on a shrub outside to drip dry. I hope to use this to make a birthday banner for my daughter. We've decided to have a crafty themed birthday party. It'll be much later in the summer when we are less busy. Last year we did a star theme, and the year before that, we did rainbows

Dyed Yarn

This is my yarn stash of the hand dyed wool I use for my crochet flowers. I use a simple but messy process with Kool-aid packets, food coloring droplets, vinegar, and the microwave. Later on I use bleach to get the mess of stray color off the white counter top.


Isn't it yummy? I want to work on getting some very light pastels and lavender. Lavender is very hard to do and I haven't achieved it yet.

Pink is a little tricky. It wants to come out really bright like the one in the center. You have to add a little bit of watered down blue to get it toned down.


Brown is red and green mixed together with a little bit of blue too. I just wing it without a recipe. That large ball was too reddish, so I overdyed it yesterday and got a better shade. I haven't perfected orange, but it helps to use a little bit of blue to tone it down or it looks really like neon. That orange is my Chicago Bears orange. Red is really easy.


These make me feel happy. Green is easy. The yellow on the right is very very bright, I use a bit of pink to get a warmer color.


The turquoise is the easiest. (Would you call that cyan?) It's just the regular Kool-aid for blue or the regular blue food coloring droplets. Blue doesn't soak in as easily so it needs to cook longer. I use grape flavored Kool-Aid packets with blue and red food coloring to get the dark blue. The grape flavor is really dark, so it is trickier. I love the way the dark blue has all the rosy mottled effect.

Fresh Dyed Yarn

I've been making felted wool flowers and came to the point where I needed more colors. One 40% off coupon at JoAnns, a large skein of Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool, and several packets of Kool-Aid later and I have this fruity scented colored yarn. Yummy!

Here's the mess of dyeing supplies. Kool-Aid is a bit neon, so I toned down the colors a bit by splashing in diluted drops of complimentary colors. I also used vinegar and the microwave:


Dozens of people have already done this and blogged tutorials, so I'm not going to bother with that. This is a great thing to do with the kids, but my kids are at school and I still think it's pretty fun! Knitty did an article about the process HERE. Note that Kool Aid and food dyes only work on protein fibers like wool or silk. It will not dye acrylic or cotton. It will also dye your fingers, but not permanently.

Here's a pic of the stuff I recently used up:


I'm making flowers like these:


I never get tired of flowers! These are stitched to safety pins because I like those much better than jewelry pin backs. They will be for sale at a craft show right here in Chicagoland. Check it out HERE.