Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, May 31, 1993                   TAG: 9306020006
SECTION: NEWSFUN                    PAGE: NF1   EDITION: HOLIDAY  
SOURCE: WENDI GIBSON RICHERT NEWSFUN WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

A PROJECT TO DYE FOR

And, because it's also functional, it will please teachers and parents, too.

Everybody benefited a couple of weeks ago at Wasena Elementary School when art teacher Mary Brown lined up a couple of artsy visitors to work with some pupils there.

These artists, though, didn't come armed with paintbrushes and canvases, charcoal pencils and sketch pads, or modeling clay and metal tools. Instead, they brought T-shirts, colorful dyes, mixes of trisodiumphosphate, rubber gloves and forks.

Their mission: to teach Wasena kids the art of tie-dying. The guests: The Tie-Dye Guy, R.J. Morrison, and his wife and partner, Barbara. They own Roanoke's Towers Mall Tie-Dye Guy shop, which sells an assortment of tie-dyed garments, each dyed by the Morrisons.

Behind the school on a sunny and cool afternoon, the Morrisons prepared for their work before the first class joined them outside. Barbara, bending over plastic buckets on the ground, mixed the trisodiumphosphate (TSP) and water with her gloved hands. Before tie-dying, the Morrisons always soak their fabrics in this mixture. It's easier to dye wet fabric, Barbara explained. And the TSP gets rid of any residues on the fabric so the dyes stick to it better.

When the first class of pupils stepped up to the demonstration table, the fourth-graders had only an inkling of what they were about to see and do. Only one pupil raised her hand when the Tie-Dye Guy asked who had tie-dyed before.

Nevertheless, the kids learned that tie-dying, while messy, is easy. And the best part of it is, no matter how many times you've done it, you can never create a design twice, and you can never make a mistake!

With one simple, but stern rule, the Tie-Dye Guy began: "Safety first."

When tie-dying, the Morrisons wear rubber gloves to protect their hands from the TSP-soaked garments. The Tie-Dye Guy issued his young artists pairs of these gloves before getting down to the business of the day.

Then came the fun part.

Here is a synopsis of how the Tie-Dye Guy does his thing:

Spread your wet garment out flat. For the sake of explanation, we'll pretend it's a T-shirt. Fabrics that are 100 percent cotton work best.

Using a fork, place its prongs wherever you want the center of your tie-dye to be. Then, twist the fork so that the T-shirt spirals around it. When the T-shirt is wound around the fork, remove it, pat the spiral flat and push all the edges together so that you make a "pie" out of it.

Hold your "pie" together with rubber bands. Use three, cutting the pie into six parts.

Now it's time for the messy part. First, decide what colors of dye you want to use. (Always use fiber-reactive dyes, available through The Tie-Dye Guy shop or other craft stores).

If you want stripes darting from the center of your tie-dye, cover one side of your "pie" with the color you'd like your stripes to be. If you don't want stripes, don't cover either side with a single color.

Next, color the "pie" pieces (the triangles formed by the rubber bands crossing over each other) with different colored dyes.

That's it. But your T-shirt won't be ready until the dyes have had time to set. Place your "pie" T-shirt in a plastic bag, and put that bag inside a second plastic bag. For the dye to become brightest and truest in color, leave your T-shirt in the bags and place them in the sun for a couple of days. (For softer pastel colors, leave in the sun for about an hour; for medium colors, just one day.)

When you're sure your color is as deep as you'd like, remove the shirt from the bags and take off the rubberbands. Rinse the T-shirt out in clear water twice to be sure the dyes won't rub off onto your skin or clothes.

Then you're finished, and that's the art of tie-dying.

Ever wondered how many tie-dyes your eyes can possibly bear at once? Then visit Buchanan Elementary School June 11 when the Tie-Dye Couple, who take their art to many schools throughout the region, will come to the school's Spirit Day. There, about 400 kids will wear their own tie-dye creations the Tie-Dye couple taught them to make.