UDNSLIY July 8, 2017
Victoria Ann Zappi Colombine
Today, in our Interest Group, we learned how to do Chinese tie dye!
Chinese tie dye is not at all what I thought it would be, in fact it’s much more artistic than I had originally thought. When I first heard that we were going to do Chinese tie dye, I thought we would tie a shirt with hair bands and use several different dyes and make something similar to 80’s American tie dye shirts. Instead, we only used one color, and used special folding techniques to created designs on the fabric. Professional Chinese tie dye involves the use of using thread to prevent the dye from touching the cloth, so then when the thread is removed it creates a design. Another interesting difference in American and Chinese tie dye is that Chinese tie dye involves the use of plants to make dye colors. In America chemical dyes are commonly used, but since the Chinese tie dye uses a natural plant based dye, it is better for the environment and needs to be boiled in order to set in the color. When we were dying our cloth, it was really fun to sew in designs and experiment with different folding styles in order to make the most interesting design. After my partner and I boiled our cloth, we thought about different types of folds we could try to make different designs. I definitely think Chinese tie dye is a beautiful form of art and I definitely want to do it again some day!
