Transcript
I’m going to show you how to make a diamond pattern using tie dye and this is actually one of my favorite techniques. I have an example here that you can see the diamond, and this is one version of it, and then I have a bigger diamond shape version of it in here. You can see that all the patterns are created by using lines. And for this we’ll be doing some folding. This pattern really only involves folding and creasing.
So you have your fabric and you want to start by accordion folding in one direction. So in this direction, I’m going to accordion fold it in three, because its a pretty narrow fabric and I want my diamonds to be big. What you have to keep in mind is that the folds that you’re making are actually going to be the lines on your pattern. So if you make the folds pretty narrow then your pattern will be smaller. If you make the folds pretty big, then your pattern will be bigger.
So I folded up already my fabric in three parts and I did the accordion folding. Now I’m going to fold it in triangular shapes. Also, accordion so I’ll fold one way to one side and the other way on the other side. So I’m folding it and you want to do this until all you have is a triangular section little bundle. And then my last one is going to be a funky looking triangle, but that is okay. So at the end of it you should finish with a triangle little folded bundle.
So to remind you again, what we’re really doing here, we’re creasing and folding the fabric to create the lines that you will see on the diamond. So all my lines here will actually create these lines in the diamond. For instance, in this one it’s pretty easy to see that I have one side here, the other side here, and the other side here, then they will repeat because you did the accordion folding.
If you’re going to put this in the immersion bath, you want to make sure that your triangle will stay together. The easiest way to do that is by using a string, a rubber band, so you might want to just place a rubber band around the two edges of the triangle. Remember that, because you’re putting a rubber band in this part, where the rubber band is the dye will won’t really go through. So on top of it all you also have a resist here in the front faces of it.
You can see in my example that these triangles in the corner where my front and my back and you can see tiny resists with the rubber bands. If you use pretty thin rubber bands, they’ll almost be invisible and that’s my favorite method, but otherwise you could just put a clamp or anything you wanted. But you’ve always got to think that whatever you use to keep the triangle together will cause a resist as well. At this point you could just dunk it in the dye bath.
Normally prepared just by mixing dye with a dye activator and you let it sit for one hour and then after that you rinse it, and you’re good to go. These are just two examples of how to make diamond shapes using tie dye, such as this.
