Tie-Dye Party

I have a very brave friend. Yesterday, she hosted a tie-dye party in her little backyard with a pretty large amount of the under 8 set. There were a lot of parents around too, but in many ways that just seemed to add to the chaos. A fun time was had by all though, in spite of the (yes, still) dreary weather. I swear these photos were taken in the only 10 minutes of sun we had all day. Is it EVER going to feel like summer here? I digress.

Tie-dying, if you have never done it yourself is incredibly fun and easy and even if you screw it up, you can't really screw it up. That is my kind of project, especially with kids. Korana threw 3 big buckets of RIT dye in the driveway in three colors (she used dark yellow, teal and fuchsia), we all went to town wrapping stuff up in rubber bands and then we dyed away!

Our instructions were to "think of it like easter eggs" - the longer you dip , the darker it will be. Feel free to combine and blend. Some of us were haphazard. Others, like this young man (ahem), were careful about each color and placement.

Tate made purple, which he was delighted with (even though I think I managed to fade them too much because I don't think I let them dry properly before washing and wearing). After "painting" them (Tate's words), we threw them in the kiddie pool to rinse, took the rubber bands off and hung them to dry!

Here you can tell the sun was gone again, but what a fun and cheery (almost) substitute!

A word of warning, if you attempt a gathering like this: be sure anyone who hangs on the upper racks wrings out their shirt well. Tate's purple swirls got a few big drips of green and yellow from a rather wet one way at the top. But, like I said, no harm done because you really can't screw it up.