90’s Retro Chic

One of my classes this semester is Decorative Arts and Soft Furnishings, which is a sort of arts and crafts kind of class. Last time we made textile designs with huge sheets of canvas and fabric paint. This time, as we were on the topic of dyeing methods, we made tie dye shirts!

*Insert flashbacks of childhood here*

One of my ultimate favorite shirts when I was a kid was an oversized T-shirt tie dyed with neon colors. I didn’t let go of it until it was torn and tattered. In third grade my brother and I made our own crappy tie dye as the sports fest uniform of his class. Those were the tacky and psychedelic times of tie dye. Now there are really awesome examples of the same dyeing method that don’t look as dated. That was what I was aiming for.

I started with a basic white cotton t-shirt which I cut up a bit from the sleeves and collar just so it won’t be so basic. Some (a lot of) rubber bands, two dye colors later, here it is!

It didn’t look exactly the way that I wanted it (I wanted the circles to be in three vertical lines), but it still looked great. My professor loved it and kept asking me to make her one, or give this one to her. I just explained how I made the design. 😛

Looky, I found a flower outside the classroom that looked like the inspiration for my shirt! Cool.

Detail of the flowers/circles

I also dyed some of the trimmings and made fabric flowers out of ’em.

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I still have a lot of leftover dye from this exercise. I wonder what I’m going to do with them next? 😀

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