A rainbow of RIT DYE and a circle SIT-UPON

“Red and yellow and pink and green… purple and orange and blue… you can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, too…”

A rainbow of Rit Dye

What an exciting package to arrive on my doorstep! Rit Dye in a rainbow of fun colors!

The “Sing a Rainbow” song is one I remember from elementary school. I absolutely loved our music teacher! She was young and fun and put on ambitious and fantastic musicals. We had full costumes, scripts, solos and props… Classic tales set to music and worth every minute of memorizing all those lines!

What does that have to do with Rit Dye, you ask? My first memory of using Rit Dye is from an elementary school musical. For Alice in Wonderland, my friend and I were selected to be Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. We were hilarious at it! I think we must have practiced our duet a thousand times before our first performance. The song was “Say How Do You Do and Shake Hands”, and we trolloped through the audience doing just that as we sang. Such fun memories. We were excited to be twins for the play, and the costume was totally left up to us (meaning our Moms). It’s a fun memory of the magic of Rit Dye and how it transformed two skinny little gals into plump and colorful Dee and Dums!  We started with white thermals and used Rit to dye the tops yellow and the bottoms red. My mom made us big white collars, someone found twirlybird hats for us, we stuffed our belly with a pillow, and we were ready to roll…

Tweedle Dum!

This picture was a really lucky find! The photo album it is from was almost ruined in a flood but I couldn’t bear to throw it away. Most of the pictures from the play were ruined but this one at least shows a little of the Rit Dye costume project.

Over the years, I have used Rit Dye to bring life back to some favorite blue jeans, and tie dye white tee shirts and silly socks into our favorite team colors. I thought about those Tweedle costumes every time!

This Rit project is a back-to-school project, and perfect for a preschool or elementary classroom. It also incorporates a new skill, SeWiNg! With some inspiration from  Lil Blue Boo, reminding me of my girl scout camping days and the “sit upons” we made every year, here we go! You can find her sit upon instructions here http://www.lilblueboo.com/2013/02/simple-round-situpons-sit-upons-from-vinyl-tablecloth.html#more-32782

Learning how to sew has opened up a whole new world of crafting! I am, admittedly, an absolute amateur, but am also absolutely determined to become an expert! I used my new sewing skills to make a cute little Rit Dye tie dyed circle sit-upon.  I was laughingly asked by a teacher friend if it was for a “reward” seat or a “time-out” seat. I’m hoping it is for a reward seat in a class book nook, for extra reading time earned by terrific behavior in the classroom! Or maybe for a new reader to sit on to read a book to their class!

I read the Rit instructions for tie dyeing, and off I went on a pink and blue adventure!

Here we go on a Rit Dye adventure!

I chose duck cloth as my fabric, as it is sturdy for the classroom, and washed it before dyeing, as instructed. In traditional tie dye fashion, for the fuchsia side of the sit-upon, I gathered the fabric and wound it tightly with rubber bands in a random pattern.

Single rubber bands for the fuchsia fabric

I was a little more adventurous for the royal blue fabric. I double banded the fabric, again in a random pattern, for a double ring of tie dye fun.

Double rubber bands for the Royal Blue fabric

With a cup of salt, a tablespoon of mild detergent, and water that I heated on the stove, I was ready!

The Rit instructions are to add one cup of salt and one tablespoon of mild detergent.

I used two dyeing methods at once, and they both worked great!

I dyed the fuchsia fabric in a big plastic tub.

Tickled pink!

I dyed the royal blue fabric on the stove, using my trusty big black canning pot.

Royal Blue stovetop dyeing (in my canner)

Great to know it works like a charm, because this Kentucky summer has been a rainy one. Outdoor projects have been hit or miss! After a 15 minute dye bath, the fabric was ready to rinse. I followed the instructions in the Rit pamphlet, and rinsed the fabric with the rubberbands on until the water ran clear. I took the rubberbands off, and rinsed the fabric again. I washed the fabrics in the washing machine, separately, in a warm water wash and dried them in the dryer. The instructions from Rit are fantastic! I love how it turned out! Always use the manufacturer’s instructions!

First rinse for the fuchsia fabric

Fuchsia rinse after removing rubber bands

Royal Blue first rinse

Royal Blue rinse after removing rubber bands

I made the sit-upon by using a round template to cut the top and bottom pieces, and to cut quilt batting for in between. My template wasn’t fancy, I actually used one of our snow sledding discs, as it was handy. And round. And the perfect size.

All pinned up!

After digging through my huge bag of ribbon, I chose to sew the rounds together using a fun lime green grosgrain ribbon around the edging.

Pinning the ribbon trim. Love the lime green!

And ta-da! It’s done! Now, to pick a teacher-friend to gift it to!

Ready for the Classroom!

Ready for the Classroom!