Today I made lots of shirts. It started out with a screen printing workshop held by the event coordinators of the Muertos Y Merigold parade, our local Dia De Los Muertos celebration. I have never screen printed before, it was a lot of fun. We were late, of course. It's so hard to get out on time for us (new baby) (slow husband ;). Anyway, I missed most of the introduction and instruction, but caught on fairly quickly.
The first shirt I made was for the baby. I messed it up slightly at the lower bottom, the instructor said its hard to do on onsies because you can't separate and smooth the fabric like a regular shirt, but it's still cute. Plus, she's always sitting, no one will probably ever notice! ;)
The next few got easier and easier to do. We were able to bring our own shirts and add the new theme design for this years parade, or past years designs.
The theme is 'Silence is Death'.
There were a lot of cool designs, this one won first place.
They also had lots of shirts to help print on to sell at the parade and art vendor event afterwords. The money goes towards the cost of the event, since it's free for the public. This year will be my 2nd year having a booth at the art vendor event. Last year was awesome but it rained heavily. A first for the event I was told.
One of the past years designs was a superman themed design. I made one for my son and a few kids sizes for them to sell. I love it....
How awesome is that?!
Here are the final photos for the screen printing.
I probably made around 2 shirts total before we had to go. My husband was so patiently taking care of the kids outside while I did this. I thought my son would be really into it but alas, he was not. He was into the snack table and the rope swing outside. (Which they informed my husband was not really for kids since a child hung himself on it last year 😳) (He survived, thank goodness!)
After we left I went home and started another project, tie dying!!! My last tie dying attempt was thwarted by my old washing machine that decided it was going to be unbalanced and sat there for several hours soaking in dye water. All the shirts and stuff came out dingy and gross. 😔 They ended up being rags. This time I was prepared with a brand new fancy fancy washer! Fanciest thing I've ever owned probably!
Anyway, I did lots of clothes. I pre washed them and tied them while still wet, Soaked them in Soda Ash and began to dye them. We watched 'The Social Network' while doing all this, so again, no pics! (Really liked that movie!)
Here are all the dyed shirts wrapped up in grocery bags to let th dye set.
Waiting to be rinsed.....
Rinsing...
I dyed 5 shirts for my son, 5 shirts for me and hubby, 3 onesies for baby now and three in a few sizes larger to grow into, and some onsies to sell, and a bottom sheet for my bed.
All of them came out fantastic looking except the bed sheets. I bought them online and when I received them I thought they were a little too.... Shiny and silky to be cotton. But figured 'what do I know?' Because I KNOW I ordered cotton. So, I used them anyway. Well, I was right. After using an extensive amount of dye and letting it set for almost 24 hours, I rinsed them and almost all the dye washed right out. Definitely not cotton. 😡
Only some spots of blue remain. Arg...
For the most part this was all a success! I do love to tie dye!!
