THE CHRISTMAS T-SHIRTS.

I love T-shirts. The problem is, if I make them in any size that is close to my own, I want to wear them and I can't bear to sell them.

So I(we) were happy to get a custom order a week before Christmas.

On the evening of day one, two black and one white T-shirts were scoured (thoroughly washed with a little synthropol and soda ash) to remove any oils or sizing left on the shirts from the manufacturing process. Then they were folded and bound with rug warp to create the resist for the shibori dying process.

On day two, at about noon, we heated a gallon of water to boiling and added a teaspoon of Thiox and a teaspoon of soda ash. Into this went the black shirts to discharge. When the discharge was complete (these blacks discharged to a light tan). The process was stopped by transferring the shirts to a bucket of cold water. When cool, they were transferred to a bucket containing 1 gallon of water and 11 tablespoons of white household vinegar to neutralize the fabric. Next we soaked the white T-shirt in water. After wringing out all three shirts. They were over dyed with mixing blue and orange for the black shirts, and two shades of orange for the white shirt. We placed them in individual bags with about 3/4 cups each of soda ash solution and sealed them to batch overnight.

On the morning of day three the shirts were removed from the bags, as much of the remaining dye and water were squeezed out and the bindings removed. After thoroughly rinsing the shirts in water with synthropol until very little color was coming out of the fabric, they were machine washed and dried.

Later that day, we delivered them in time for Christmas.

After Christmas we realized that we hadn't taken pictures of the shirts, and a very nice lady (thank you Pat) borrowed the shirts back and took pictures of them so that we could post them here.

Merry Christmas (belated) and Happy New Year.

Linda and Barry