Tutorial Tuesday - T-shirt cap

It is unseasonably warm in my neck of the woods. Nevertheless, somewhere, someone could us a baby cap.

I thought that a tie dyed cap would be cute. If you are going to tie dye the t-shirt, go ahead and do that first. Last week, I posted the tutorial on how to tie dye.

Cut the sleeve of a t-shirt off.

Turn sleeve inside out and cut the seam edge off, so that the t-shirt is a square shape. Before cutting the edge make sure sleeve fits on babies head. If it needs to be smaller, then mark it, and make your cut further over.

Stitch the cut edge. Set aside.

Cut a strip of t-shirt about 1/4" wide and 12" long. Stretch the strip so the edges will coil together.

Okay, this is the best part....a video! I made a video on how to tie a Monkey's fist knot. I think I spent about a week obsessed with decorative knots. So, I will include many more knots in the future.

With material still inside out, place the free end of the knot inside the center of the material. You can adjust the knot to the length that you would like. The pin indicates where the free end of the knot should be placed.  Stitch the knot to the center of the material. Only stitch about 1/4" long over the free end of the knot, leaving the rest of the top open.

Gather the opposite edges into the center and pin. 

Pinning in the center created four pleats. Pin each pleat separately.

Now, sew each pleat closed, rounding the stitch to fit the head. You will have to sew four edges.

Clip off the excess seams and turn right side out.

Va la! Cute and simple.

This hat could be adapted for an adult by adjusting the size of the t-shirt that you use.

If you have a suggestion for future tutorials let me know. Happy creating.

T-shirt scarves

One of my clients gave me a great tip. She said that I should take the sleeves of t-shirts and sew them together to make a scarf. So I did and I think it was a great idea. Thanks Mary Rose



Tie Dye Scarf



I will have a bunch of colorful scarves at the Yellow Springs Street Fair tomorrow.





It's a Yellow Springs Weekend

Yellow Springs is a hip, fun town, near Dayton Ohio. Great place to enjoy nature and browse some cute shops. This Saturday, I will be a vendor at the Yellow Springs Street Fair. I will be featuring tie dyed t-shirt scraves and shoulder bags.

The street fair will have over 200 booths of arts, crafts and jewelry, as well as, international selection of cuisine from Vietnamese, Thai, Mexican and more.  The fair will also have performers playing throughout the streets to bands on the main stage.

Jackson Lytle & Lewis Stage              Music Festival & Beer Garden

Project Jericho                                         The Show 12 pm

Bucket Band 11 am                                 Sawgrass 1 pm
Egyptian Breeze 12 pm                            Dustin Vincent 2 pm
Hardtackers 1 pm                                    Slipstream 3 pm

Egyptian Breeze 2 pm                              Mercury Mouth 4 pm
Living Daylights 3 pm                               Romeo Champagne 5 pm
Sweet Betsy 4 pm                                   The Werks* 6 pm

It will be a fun filled day!

My first tutorial

I spent Sunday afternoon dyeing a bunch of white t-shirts. It was a lot of fun and kind of addicting. I decided to add a tutorial section to my blog to teach others how to do cool stuff. My first tutorial is on dyeing material.  Here is the tutorial. The entire tutorial with pictures is posted under the page "Want to learn something?"

How to dye clothing

Mixing the dye. Measure out 1/2 cup of salt and dissolve it into boiling water. Make sure your salt does not contain Iodine. Once it is dissolved, add 4 ounces of the dye solution. This amount of dye will dye at least 10 pieces of clothing. Use the whole container if you want to dye lots of stuff!!

Preparing the clothing. I put the clothing I wanted to dye in the washing machine and ran hot water into the basin. I let the clothes soak in the water while I was mixing the dyes.

Prepping the dye. You will need a bucket or large bowl. I chose to use a large 5 gallon bucket. By the way, you should do all of your dyeing in an area of your house that will be easy to clean, for instance a basement or even outside. You will end up dyeing other things besides the clothing. Pour the concentrated dye mixture into the bucket. Add whatever amount of water you would like to the concentrated dye mixture in the bucket. Start with a smaller amount of water, then test the dye on a piece of fabric to see if it is the color you desire.

Dyeing. You can leave the clothing in the dye for however long you would like. It really just depends on how dark or light you want the material to be.

Rinsing. Rinse out the clothing with cold water until the water runs clear. Ring out the clothing and hang to dry. Once dry, wash in the washing machine on cold to completely remove all excess dye.



Have fun dyeing stuff!!!!