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JESSICA: sixteen. singapore. newbie here.

I'm doing a tie-dye project for my O levels. Tt's a major examination that we have to undertake before we can receive tertiary eeducation.

I spent about 18 hours over a period of three days cutting & unpicking the knots that I've sewn. The final product below (click on image to enlarge):



Yeah as you can see the quality is not that good. Colours are white, pink, purple and black. I started out with a white cloth, drew on the designs, and stiched white thread onto the composition.

To dye, we had to boil water, add a lil salt (any kind), and mix it with the dye. The cloth had to be sumberged for approximately 10 minutes. At least long enough to make sure that the cloth had absorbed the colour properly.

To dry, we had to roll it dry with newspapers. It was a process that used too much strength & time and produced too little results. I cheated & blew it with a hair dryer while watching the telly :P

Then there was preserving. That's when we tie raffia strings around certain clumps to preserve the colour. In my case, pink. The dying + drying + preserving process was repeated with the second colour.

Black was the final colour. When it was done, I had to remove the strings & unpick the knots. Unpicking the knots alone took me 18 hours. The sewing costed me 25hours. Etc etc. I think the whole process took around 50 hours- spreaded over a period of few months, cos I was lazy. But I had to rush because we're supposed to hand in tomorrow.