But, Are They Toxic?

I was once walking along a busy street downtown with my 2 kids, and we were wearing matching 6-colour rainbow spiral t-shirts, of my own making, of course, and I ran into a person I knew from a mothering group I had participated in a few years before. She admired the t-shirts, but then asked, "But, are they toxic?"

I saw red for just a moment ("Yes, they are toxic, but I let my own children wear them, because I'm a terrible mom and I don't care if my children wear t-shirts with toxic chemicals infused into them, and not only that, but I make them for infants and other people's children to wear because I want to make money and I don't care if the clothing poisons other people's children as well as my own!").

I'm still kind of mad about this question, although I was only asked the once. But "chemicals" get a bad rap in our world! Our bodies are made of chemicals! Plenty of stuff all around us is made of chemicals! Let's not use it as a synonym for "bad stuff!"

Rant over.

To Spin or Not to Spin -- Working with Damp Blanks

When I first started tie-dyeing, the instructions I was following at the time said to soak the blanks in soda ash, then wring them out, then fold, tie, and immediately apply the dye. The True Tie Dye DVD (which I highly recommend, btw) recommends wringing out the blanks, then folding, tying, and letting the garments completely dry before adding the dye, but only sometimes, so I'm not clear on why they sometimes work with a dry garment and sometimes a damp one.

I found that all the different approaches work well, but with different results. The less damp your garment is when you add the dye, the less the colour will travel. So when I wrung out the blanks by hand, I ended up with a much more streaky spiral, with the streaks running from the inside to the outside of the spiral design. Which is fine, but it is quite a different look from the spiral which is the result of being spun out in the washing machine. Also, I originally had a top-loading washer, but now I have a front-loader, which means that the blanks that come out of the machine now after the spin cycle have very little liquid in them, so I am able to get much clearer results in the designs as the dye doesn't travel much at all. I have never tried to dye a blank that was completely dry, but if I ever decide to do some very detailed designs that might be a way of managing it.