Tien Chiu

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You are here: Home / Archives for tie-dye

September 26, 2016 by Tien Chiu

A new wardrobe!

I needed some new clothes, so I spent this weekend puttering in the dyepots. I dyed 17 articles of clothing: six T-shirts, four blouses, four button-down shirts, a ruana/poncho, an open jacket, and – shockingly – an actual dress! I haven’t worn a dress (except my wedding dress) in at least twenty years. That’s because the dress code for Silicon Valley engineering departments is jeans-only; I found out very early in my career that anything young, female, and in skirts was immediately dismissed as unimportant.

However, having left high-tech, I decided that it might be fun to experiment with radical wardrobe changes (ooh, cross-dressing!), so I scrunch-dyed this lovely dress in emerald green, cobalt blue, cerulean blue, and a hint of turquoise. I love it! And I may actually wear it. Friends: try not to faint when you see me. 🙂

tie-dyed sleeveless dress
tie-dyed sleeveless dress

Here are the nicer T-shirts:

tie-dyed T-shirt

ice dyed tie-dye T-shirt
ice dyed tie-dye T-shirt

spiral tie-dye T-shirt

ice dyed spiral T-shirt
ice dyed spiral T-shirt

green and blue tie-dyed shirt

And the light jackets:

"Waterfall jacket" from Dharma Trading Company
“Waterfall jacket” from Dharma Trading Company
Ruana/poncho, scrunch dyed
Ruana/poncho, scrunch dyed

And two of the simple blouses. These were meant to provide a boring background for more decorative/dramatic jackets and shawls. I had intended to dye them evenly, but there was a little bit of variation in color. I love it! The slight variation gives them more visual interest than a truly solid color.

immersion dyed blouses
immersion dyed blouses

And now I have a new wardrobe! Just in time, too – I’m leaving next Monday to go traveling, both on family business and to attend the American Craft Council’s “Present Tense” conference in Omaha, NE.

Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, dyeing Tagged With: tie-dye

July 8, 2016 by Tien Chiu

Tie-dye fireworks for the Fourth of July

Mike’s mom has been visiting us for the past week. I found out she’d never done tie-dye! So of course I had to show her. We spent the mornings of July 3 and July 4 tie-dyeing shirts, socks, and a bathrobe (yes, a bathrobe!). I stupidly forgot to take photos of her tie-dyes (which came out beautifully), but I thought I’d share the products of my labor.

I started with fireworks. I was originally envisioning seven stars floating in space, so I scrunched the shirt up into seven spirals, and dyed the spirals orange and yellow and the background cobalt blue. When I untied the shirt, however, I was surprised to discover that instead of stars, I had bursts of fireworks!

Tie-dyed fireworks!
Tie-dyed fireworks!

Next, also in the theme of tie-dye in outer space, I dyed a starburst. I was actually going after a mandala pattern, so I folded the shirt in eight parts, tied it tightly, and dyed it in rainbow colors. I didn’t get the mandala, but I got a very beautiful starburst:

Tie-dye starburst shirt
Tie-dye starburst shirt

Going from space to sea, I did a scrunch-dye (basically a low-water immersion tie-dye) shirt in deep ocean colors, which came out very nicely:

Tie-dyed shirt in Caribbean colors
Tie-dyed shirt in Caribbean colors

And, finally, the bathrobe. My previous bathrobe (also tie-dyed) had become threadbare, and I bought a replacement years ago but never got around to dyeing it. But of course I couldn’t break with tradition and wear a white bathrobe (I’ve been wearing tie-dye bathrobes for almost 30 years), so I’ve been making do with the old bathrobe that entire time. So I jumped at the chance to dye a replacement.

Now, some people prefer light, casual bathrobes, but I personally prefer the formal, floor-length bathrobe, because I often wear it to black-tie occasions and a little black cocktail bathrobe would never do. So I had a huge bathrobe made of luxurious terry-cloth…and dyeing one of those is like trying to dye four or five giant, super-heavy bath towels. And of course towels are made to soak up lots of water.

Nonetheless I was surprised to discover how much dye it took to penetrate the fabric. We poured on dye. Then we poured on more dye. Then we peeked inside the folds, saw tons of virgin white, and added dye again. Repeat, repeat, repeat until at least three quarts of dye had gone into the robe – and there was still plenty of white peeking through.

At this point, I was starting to run out of my chosen colors. So I added several other shades of blue and orange to the mix, squished down the tied robe to help the dye penetrate, said a few prayers to the gods who look over tie-dyes, and left it to batch.

And it came out fabulous!

Tie-dyed bathrobe, front
Tie-dyed bathrobe, front
Tie-dye bathrobe, back
Tie-dye bathrobe, back

There’s still a bit more white than I would ideally like, but the colors came out happily exuberant. It will be perfect for those black-tie fundraising balls. (And just as fabulous for lounging about the house in the morning.)

I have, of course, also been busy with developing the business website, and am almost ready for the website launch. It’s looking good! There is a lot I could improve, but the basics are set up. I’m very pleased. Expect the Big Reveal soon!

Finally, the book release is going to be NEXT WEEK!! so I’ve been doing something I have been waiting for for almost four years…planning the launch party! It’s going to be Saturday, July 23. I’m inviting all my friends – in fact, darn near everyone I know – to help me celebrate. I’m trying to think of book-themed activities to make the party more interesting – would love suggestions!

Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, dyeing Tagged With: book, tie-dye

April 8, 2014 by Tien Chiu

A busy day in the dyepots

Sunday was a busy day in the dyepots! I dyed eleven shirts and seven pairs of socks:

2014-04-07 06.41.16
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2014-04-07 06.48.23
fuchsia shirt
fuchsia shirt
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2014-04-07 06.41.22
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tie-dye socks!
tie-dye socks!
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Of these, my favorite is this one, which reminds me of bougainvillea:

fuchsia shirt
fuchsia shirt
Bougainvillea in bloom
Bougainvillea in bloom

And, of course, what would a tie-dye shirt be without matching socks?

tie-dye socks!
tie-dye socks!

In addition to all that tie-dye, I tested two discharge processes – reduction discharge using Formusol/Rongalite, the active ingredient in Jacquard discharge paste, and a thiourea dioxide immersion bath. I tested each of the two discharge processes on 22 samples covering most of the “pure” colors of Cibacron F and Procion MX fiber-reactive dyes (plus a few mixed colors). I haven’t had time to photograph and write up the results yet, but will post them in the dyeing section of my website later. Hopefully my work will help some other dyer.

I did not, alas, manage to tie-dye the Skybox T-shirt. It turns out that the black dye used does not discharge well with either Formusol or bleach, and only discharges to an ugly medium tan with thiourea dioxide. I still have one discharge method up my sleeve (RIT color remover, aka sodium hydrosulfite), and will try that out this coming weekend. If that isn’t effective, I’ll go back to thiourea dioxide, and overdye with red afterwards- that will likely give me only a dull brick red, but that still might look good. I have three T-shirts to play with, so I’m pretty sure I can cook up something.

Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, dyeing Tagged With: tie-dye

April 3, 2014 by Tien Chiu

Illumination dyeing

I’ve been enjoying my life of laziness – sleeping in, lounging about, and puttering around at not much of anything. But three days of this is more than enough! Time to get back into the studio.

Well, sort of. I’m still percolating on the color-study warp, and while I’m busily writing chapters of the book, I want something physical to play with, too!

So here is my dyer’s challenge:

SkySat-1 First Light T-shirt
SkySat-1 First Light T-shirt

This is a T-shirt from work – they handed them out to commemorate the opening of the camera door on our satellite, a momentous occasion known as “First Light”. It’s the moment when you find out whether your carefully-designed, lovingly-built, breathtakingly-launched satellite will actually do what you are hoping/expecting it will. In this case, it was the culmination of four years of hard work from everyone at the company.

Okay, so it’s a momentous occasion. But it’s still a black T-shirt. And I couldn’t possibly be caught dead in anything solid black. At least, not at work, where I’m renowned for wearing tie-dye shirts. (Our CEO is fond of pointing out to visitors that I even have matching tie-dye socks!) So clearly, the gauntlet had been thrown.

But I didn’t have time to take up the challenge in December, being too busy disassembling Emmy, shipping her, reassembling her, weaving a project for Handwoven, judging a show, teaching a workshop, and all those other distracting bits and pieces. So my SkySat-1 First Light T-shirt has been sitting lonely in a closet ever since.

But no more. This weekend I’m going to fix that. I’m armed with all sorts of toys, including discharge paste, bleach, a full range of fiber-reactive dyes, and some newly-purchased vat dyes that I’d love to play with. And, in addition to a couple of First Light T-shirts (I pinched a few extras from the pile of leftovers, just in case my first attempt went wrong), I have a bathrobe, five long-sleeved T-shirts, two short-sleeved T-shirts, three bras, four sweatshirts, and a partridge in a pear tree that also need dyeing. So clearly, it’s time for a dye day.

What am I planning on doing with my First Light T-shirts? I’m not sure yet, but a starburst on the back (centered on the image in the photo above) and a smaller starburst centered on the Skybox logo on front seem like a good start. I plan to try discharge paste and bleach on the hem of one of the T-shirts so I can get an idea of how much color can be removed. And then I think I will try illumination dyeing with vat dyes.

What is illumination dyeing, you ask? It’s a process where you remove one dye while simultaneously adding another. So, instead of black, I’d wind up with the color of the illumination dye. Vat dyes turn out to be great for this because the same process that reduces the vat dye into soluble form also strips color from most dyes. Obviously this is something totally exciting that must be played with. (Because, as the kittens have explained, everything is a cat toy!)

So I’m going to spend the next day or two figuring out what I want to dye when, and experimenting with different methods of discharge. And then I’ll spend all weekend dyeing, discharging, and re-dyeing.

Meanwhile, several people have asked how effective a guard kitten could possibly be. Here’s Fritz to show you how he protects my laundry, as he bravely drives off an attacker, the Evil Hair Monster, with teeth and claws. Bravo, Fritz!

Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, dyeing Tagged With: tie-dye

August 30, 2013 by Tien Chiu

Dye Day results

Wednesday evening and Thursday morning I decided to finish the dyeing I hadn’t gotten around to. So I mixed up a new batch of dyestock, and dyed five Skystock T-shirts, three button-up rayon shirts, and nine pairs of socks. The results were decidedly mixed, partly because I was experimenting (and you never know how experiments will turn out, do you?) and partly because I botched the wash-out and had some back-staining as a result. (Back-staining is when one item bleeds onto another.)

Fortunately, the only thing that got really ruined was a pair of yellow-and-orange socks that wound up with blue blotches. The others were all salvageable, and some are actually quite nice! However, I’ve definitely decided to be more careful and thorough in washing out the dyes, in the future.

Here are the two colorways of the Skystock shirts:

skystock shirt - fiery colors on black
skystock shirt – fiery colors on black
Skystock shirt - rainbow on cobalt blue
Skystock shirt – rainbow on cobalt blue

Alas, the logo is not especially prominent on either (though it fares somewhat better on the red/black version), but the pattern is pretty nice anyway. I could overdye the logo to make the lettering more readable, but that would at least partially ruin the star. No, better to leave them as is; they’re still beautiful.

Also, I think I have the star pattern more or less down, which is nice. I will still do some more practice shirts, but I’m pleased with my techniques.

And here are seven pairs of socks (the eighth photo came out blurry):

blue turquoise and purple socks blue and orange socks analogous color socks complementary color socks

Of these, I like the ones mixed with complementary colors (blue/orange, yellow/purple, red/green) the best. The color ranges are more complex, and the effect is moodier, which (in this case) I like. My second favorite are the blue-on-blue or blue-on-purple socks. But I think all eight pairs came out very nicely.

The six shirts (I had previously dyed three, in addition to the three I did in this spurt) were not nearly as successful, and most of them have been remanded to the pile for overdyeing or other rework. Here is the best one:

turquoise and emerald shirt

I had meant this shirt to be brighter than it was (incandescent turquoise and emerald green was what I was after), but I’m pleased with it nonetheless. The patterning is crisp and well-defined, and it’s bright enough to be interesting.

Here’s my second favorite, which is actually darker than it looks in the photo:

blue and orange shirt front blue and orange shirt backI’m still not deeply fond of this one, but I like the complex patterning and the muted colors. It reminds me of some types of agate.

The others I am not so happy with:

another turquoise and emerald shirt

The emerald-and-green shirt above is blurry and boring, and the colors feel washed out. I will either do some surface design on it, or overdye it – probably in a royal blue crinkle pattern (solid color).

royal blue gold and green shirt

The shirt above just doesn’t thrill me. The colors came out in huge, blurry blotches, and don’t look good together. I’m not sure this one is salvageable, but I may try overdyeing or stamping/screen printing anyway. There’s nothing to lose!scarlet and olive first attempt scarlet and olive shirt frontThe two shirts above were an attempt at mixing scarlet and olive green, which sounded like a good idea at the time. The first one wound up blending a bit too much, so feels rather boring. It’s a good candidate for surface design, though. I just have to figure out what to put on it!

The second shirt has nice coloring, but the red is too bright relative to the (remnants) of olive green; the shirt is predominantly red and brown, and the red dominates more than I had intended. Back into the bath for overdyeing. Color will likely be green, just a little bit of it and not very intense, just enough to tone down the reds.

So, mixed results, but even mixed results can be enlightening. And I have a marvelous set of tie-dyed T-shirts and eight wonderful pairs of socks, and plenty of fodder for surface design experiments. While it could have been better, I’m still quite pleased with the results.

Off to work on that warp for Handwoven! The sooner started, the sooner done.

Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, dyeing Tagged With: tie-dye

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