Tag Archives: tie dyeing with your kids

Tie Dyeing for the New Baby

I haven’t made too many things exclusively for this new baby. I still have so much leftover from Felix, that we’re not lacking for much. Still, this new little one will be a person all their own, so a few thing just for him or her seems appropriate.

This past weekend was chilly and drizzly, which is strange for Kansas in July, and I got a Tulip tie dye kit on sale at Michael’s, so I enlisted my 10 year-old’s help in tie dyeing a few things for the new baby. Not only did we get to spend some quality time together, it helped get him invested a little bit in the prep for the new baby. He’s not exactly enthused about having another new sibling at the moment, but this was fun for both of us.

Tie Dyed Osnaburg for the Ring Sling
Tie Dyed Osnaburg for the Ring Sling

We started with three yards of osnaburg done in the classic spiral technique. It came out perfect! I’ll be making another ring sling out of this as soon as my rings come in.

When I was going through our baby clothes a couple of weeks ago, I found more than 10 plain white onesies. While I’m all for the practicality of a neutral onesie, I’m not typically known for dressing my babies practically or along gender lines, so we had a lot of fun tie dyeing some onesies in all colors.

Athrun dyed this one. It might be my favorite.
Athrun dyed this one. It might be my favorite.

This guy was created by rolling from top to bottom and using two rubber bands to divide it into three sections. Then Athrun absolutely saturated it in dye. I love it!

TieDyedOnesie2
This one reminds me of turtles

We dyed everything dry, and this guy was the only one that kind of repelled the dye. It’s a Disney brand organic cotton onesie, and I don’t think Felix ever wore it, so there’s the chance that it had never been washed. I’m not entirely sure, but I love how the dye came out anyway. This was accordian folded then sectioned into four, dyed alternately with lime and kelly greens.

TieDyedOnesie4
I love the color bleeds on this one.

As a contrast the the Disney onsie, this Gerber one was dyed using the same technique (just a different orientation) and really soaked up the dye!

It's a sunburst! Complete with sunspots!
It’s a sunburst! Complete with sunspots!

We used the bullseyes technique on this one, and the colors are so much fun.

The clean up onesie
The clean up onesie

Included in the kit was a sheet of plastic to protect your work surface, which worked great, but we were left a bunch of dye drips all over the plastic when we were done. (The instructions say to cover the plastic with paper towels to soak up drips, but we don’t use paper towels, so we improvised.) I used one last onesie to soak up the dye. Way better than paper towels. Baby will look like they helped dye their own wardrobe.

 

And just for fun, when I went to edit photos for this post, I had a large amount that accidentally looked like this:

wrap fabric plus belly and feet
I can only see my feet because the baby has started to drop

At 35 weeks, the belly is getting in the way of everything.