Final Part 1 – What

Hey! How’s it going. Im pretty stressed out just to be honest but I am super jazzed on this project. So to start off I’ll give you my vision. Recently I have been inspired by the idea of color theory (partly because of this class) and have always had a fascination for flowers. To combine these 2 ideas I thought why not make some shirts so that is how the idea was born. I wanted to use natural dyes to create a unique gradient and to add my dynamic piece I thought that maybe the colors could change using thermochromic dye. At first I had no idea how this would work or even if the idea is possible but why not try :). I have used natural dyes in the past so I was confidant that I could make a cool shirt either way just not positive if the color change would work.

So once I got all my materials together I ran into a problem. The thermochromic dye is very expensive and I am very very broke. Without much worry I decided to go full steam ahead and not worry to much. A backup plan I had was to use one of my screen designs I have made and make the color change happen with fabric dye instead of the whole shirt and that is what I went with in the end. To start I first boiled my special berry blend (recipe protected for my future sales and design book) to create the first step of the dye. For the gradient I wanted to make I decided to first only let the fruit boil and then I killed the heat. Using test strips I knew the dye would work and I could start with a lighter color. Here is a video of the first dip. First Dip.

After this first dip I started to get excited because my special berry blend turned out to be my newest favorite color:

Mauve.

Its a very special color to me and I would encourage you do look into it yourself.

To get back on track check this video of how the shirts looked after the first dye. Shirts after round 1.I was really happy with how these started to come out and was ready to get my gradient on. After adding some more of my secret fruit to up the concentration I let it boil for about 10 minutes or more I wasn’t keeping track. The smell was pretty awesome and even the shirts smell very fruity now haha. After a good boil I strained all of my fruit and kept boiling everything down. For my second dip I only put the shirts in half way and I discovered I could use tie dye techniques to create some flower like circles around the shirt. Here is a photo of how the shirts turned out after the second dye.

I loved the look of these and really feel like my aesthetic of soft colors/bloomcore and gradients really came out (in my eyes). Next to add my dynamic part I wanted to make my graphic change color in the sun. Sadly my video is missing but my group-mates can attest I had a cool video showing the colors going into the fabric dye. In the end my colors sadly did not fully come through and I think I would need a more neutral base dye and or more thermochromic dye. After adding all the dyes I decided to go with the red-yellow changing color just because I felt it matched my mauve the best because after mixing it became a light pink color. I had no issues with my screen printing and how it wasn’t my main focus for this project I did not highlight that process maybe I can explain more next week. All and all could I get a little drumroll and here is the video of my shirts 🙂 Final Shirt. I hope to bring some to the expo and maybe sell some shirts. If you like my designs check out my website at collinlkendall.com to see what I am making and maybe someday soon I will be selling my clothes from there. you heard it here first.