A couple of weeks ago, a friend told me about these women who took hospital blankets, made them 50 x 60, and finished the edges. He asked if I wanted the 100 blankets. I said yes. I had an idea—tie dye!
I sorted through the bags and set aside the ones with stripes, stains, or other reminders of the trauma they served. Striped blankets are too institutional. Some had hospital logos stamped. It’s not super warm and binky-like, so those were set aside. The plain ones were bagged for Dinner and a Movie. They’ve taught me to be sensitive to subtle details like the stripes that they can trigger not very positive memories of hospital stays. Then I headed to Michael’s to pick up a few dye kits. There was a coupon for 30% off something not on sale, so I did a couple of transactions to take full advantage of the coupon.
Kitchen string, rubber bands, and designs were in the works. The blankets were BIG, so the rubber bands snapped. That’s why the kitchen string came in handy. I remembered the thread technique used on kimonos and mimicked it—a bit.
Tips: Have an outside table covered in plastic you can toss or other rag towels. For the next round, I’ll use another blanket so that it will get dyed randomly simultaneously. There are no rules—just squirt until your hands hurt!
I left them in the sun for a day, then put them in the wash with a second rinse—no soap—on hot. That helped distribute the loose dye. I dried them, and they are what you see in the photo! HUGE HIT!
IDEAS:
- Have a tie-dye party with old sheets, or if you have hospital blankets donated.
- Invite kids to help – turn it into a small, easy event.
- If you have kids, ask them to help you choose where to donate them.
- Use those Michael’s coupons. I compared it with Amazon, and Michael’s was still better. Amazon kits didn’t have the same number of colors. I used the eight-color sets. I have another one with 20 colors that I’ll use on some of the leftover blankets.
- It’s a great project to get kids out of the classroom if they don’t have AC. Have them wear junky T-shirts to do it, and you’ll need gloves for all.
- Hang them up where the parent pick-up line drives through, or busses come to show off the beauty!
- You can tie this into chemistry, the history of tie-dye, and social studies.
- Wash in hot, extra rinse, dry to ensure the colors won’t run. Follow up that wash load with rags in case dye was handing out in your wash basin.
