Momming Monday--Sleepy Toddlers and Tie Dye Magic

                 I am in for it.  Tiny was in one of those Shroedinger's baby situations (It's quiet, but if I open the door to check if the baby is asleep, she will wake up, although I'm not sure if the baby is asleep...), so I ran around and did some chores.  Then I sat down and took care of the online chores and read some articles about how the world is ending in various and sundry ways.  Now, it's past eleven, when I usually start giving her second breakfast and prepping her for her nap.  Part of me wants to check on her, and part of me wants to see how long she intends to sleep.  I'll just peek in for a moment...

                Yup.  Still out like a light, with her little butt in the air.  I put a blanket back over her.  She clearly needs the rest, since she was still up last night at 10:30, when I had exhausted my repertoire of baby-friendly showtunes.  Something tells me that we're going to have a taller toddler on our hands in a couple hours.  And that taller toddler is going to be very hungry.

                I'm grateful for the break, though, because we cleaned out the fridge last night, which means I had dishes and leftover containers all over the kitchen this morning.  While Tiny slept in, Kiddo did distance learning, and I did the dishes.  I put everything I could into the dishwasher, but the dish drainer and the extra towel on the counter are both overflowingly full.  As a bonus, I am now finding the dishes I missed in their various (completely obvious) spots, so the sink is stacking up again.  Thank goodness Fuzzy didn't marry me for my domestic skills.

                Fuzzy and Kiddo did a tie dye day in the backyard this weekend, so I spend a goodly amount of time rinsing and prepping their projects for the final wash.  I taught tie dye at a summer day camp for three years, so I'm not as enchanted with pouring dye on things as they are.  It appears that they did not locate that bag of rubber bands that I thought I had next to the bag of gloves, though, as everything was tied with the little rubber bands that Kiddo uses to make rubber band loom stuff.   I guess that counts as a clever solution, but I now wonder what happened to the bag of rubber bands that are covered in dye.  I must spend some time looking around on that today. 

                I fell into the job as a tie dye teacher quite by chance.  Two ladies from Dickens Fair had been running this summer day camp for a city recreation department in Marin County for twenty years or so, and they needed a couple new teachers.  They called my friend and boss, who is also the Costume Director for Fair, and asked her to take over a set of classes, and then they asked her if she knew anyone else who was looking for summer work.  They had some classes that were deeply popular, and they just needed someone to run them.  She recommended me, and I agreed to take Tie Dye and create a crochet class.  They then hooked me up with the woman who had retired from teaching Tie Dye to help me figure out the structure.  The woman who used to teach this class was amazing--a fiber artist who specialized in dye techniques.  I learned a lot that afternoon.  Here are some of the most universally useful tips from her.

Useful things to make your next tie dye afternoon so much more successful:

1.  Put a plastic tablecloth on your tie dye table (which should be in the yard or somewhere easy to scrub).  Then put a couple layers of cardboard down to prevent dye puddles.

2.  Wear old clothes.  There are so many kids who assure you that they will be tidy, and this is not an issue.  This is always an issue.  I'm one of the most obsessive people I know, and I ruined a couple shirts before I got wise and put on an apron.

3.  Prep all your pieces before going out to the dye area.  All the folding and tying and rubber banding should be done before anything gets wet.  It cuts down on transfers and also dye-covered children tracking drips into your (previously clean) home.

4.  Put the gloves on.  You say that you think you don't mind getting your hands multiple colors, but then you have to go to church looking like you're responsible for a Smurf massacre.  Also, having been through multiple Right-to-Know workshops, I can assure you that just because it came in a package with a group of happy children pictured on the front, doesn't mean that the chemicals inside are practically food.  Gloves are available again, and the kits often come with them as well.  At the very least, you will have an easier time with cleanup.  At the most, your liver will stay the same color it was at the beginning of the day.

5.  Keep the project off the surface of the table.  We have several plastic baskets from the dollar store that we turn upside down and put the projects on.  That way, you can squirt the dye without your project sitting in a mushy puddle of previous colors, making the whole affair a lot closer to what you wanted in the first place.

6.  Bag each project separately.  I buy gallon-size bread bags from the dollar store for just this purpose.  The major goal with this is to prevent dye transfer between projects.

7.  Let the projects sit for a day before rinsing them out to let the dyes work their best mojo.  Then take them out of the bags, one by one, remove the rubber bands and ties, then rinse them in cold water until the water runs clear.

8.  Wash them on warm with a handful of Color Catchers, and never wash them with light clothing for as long as you own them.  Some colors are less stable than others, so color bleed can continue to occur.  Wash something with lower stakes, like dark sheets or cleaning towels in your washer after the tie dye load, just to be sure no dye remains in the washer.

9.  Clean the dye area as soon as you're done.  Wet dye cleans up more easily than dry dye that has settled into surfaces.  The cardboard and plastic tablecloth will hopefully have done their jobs and cleanup should be pretty fast, but life does wacky things every day.

                At the day camp, we used the materials offered by Dharma Trading Company, which is also located in Marin County, because it was not only local, but also the leader in the industry.  They are an amazing resource for all things fiber art--dyes, paints, methods, fabrics, and everything you can think of dyeing, available in ready-to-dye cotton.  They have a wonderful website with fast service, as well as a fantastic storefront (with dedicated parking!  And a killer yarn collection!) in San Rafael.  Proceed with a set budget--it's quite inspiring, and you can end up with three new hobbies before you're through the store.  This is not a sponsored post.  Dharma Trading doesn't know me from a dent in the wall, other than as that woman who orders several hundred t-shirts and a ton of dye once a year.

                That reminds me.  I should switch that stuff to the dryer and see if that noise I just heard was a rolling-over moan or the sound of a waking baby.  More tomorrow.