A friend from work told me her 6 year old had said he wanted to try tie-dye. So I invited them over! In the end there were two 6 year olds and a 3 year old, and 4 adults of varying ages and stages. We were spoiled for colour choices but had only two pots, so after some lovely parental problem solving we ran a red pot and a blue pot and transferred one garment from red to blue to make purple. I believe this t shirt was worn to childcare every day for some days after emerging in all its glory onto a towel designed with a tie dye aesthetic in mind.
My random collection of op-shopped craft books came good when there was a request for a tie dyed square and after three readings of the instructions in Hilary Haywood’s Enjoying Dyes (1974) this emerged:
Fancy having a Dad who is not intimidated when you say you want a monkey face on your tie dye and instead creates this!
And of course, the classics reinterpreted:
I think the last time I tie dyed in this style would have been with Mum, in the 1970s. Just once. It was an honour to be in charge of the dye pots and watch such fine parents encourage and be encouraged by their lovely children.
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