tie dye fabricActually, it involves LOTS of splashes and lots of colors–I think we had 43 colors this year at our Annual Dyeing Days event.

As always, it was a marathon event, spanning 10 days of mixing, dying, rinsing, washing and of course cleanup!

This year we added a pole vaulting event. That is to say, we raided the vault which is our garage full of precious stuff–like old pvc pipes–and did some shibori arashi.

Susan's shibori shirtThis form of resist dyeing (shibori) is done around poles to create an effect that can look like rain in a storm (arashi).

Or it can look like feathers, or leaves. You can see the shibori arashi designs we did this year on garments and fabric yardage in the tiedye slideshow.

Our friends come to dye along with us at these events. Here’s Susan shown unwrapping a shibori arashi dyed shirt.

Here’s the pattern it created on the shirt.shibori arashi

This year as always I dyed lots of fabric–cotton jersey and kona cotton this time as well as some lovely cotton gauze. I also did lots of doll bodies, silk handkerchiefs and lace for making up more Spirit Doll kits, and this time I even did feathers. They took the dye beautifully!

feathers