One thing that we have been talking about for a while, but hadn’t got around to doing, was tie dye. In keeping with our home really being a year round summer camp, we went ahead and made a tie dye collared shirt for Lloyd. As I already have more than enough t-shirts, we figured that I had to make it classy for the office.
First, Jasmine made a collared shirt out of muslin and basted it closed instead of attaching buttons (temporarily). Next, and very importantly, wash the shirt to ensure that it can take the dye. Then we tie-dyed it in a classy two tone green and blue. There are a bunch of very good tie-dye tutorials online; we mostly took from www.bystephanielynn.com and used a modified accordion fold with RIT dye. Then, after re-laundering, Jasmine attached the buttons and, voila, a shirt!
First, I am amazed by how easy it was once we learned that you have to wash the cloth first. I think, in the future, Jasmine might actually dye some of her own cloths for preference, and maybe we will have a go at some homemade dye. But, for the time being, I am very happy with my shirt.

Trial blue pieces. The dye gets remarkably vivid.

Note the gloves and clean laundry room environment. In an unsurprising turn of events, dye stains.

Shirt folded and banded with extra hair ties. I dunked the ends is blue for about 5 minutes and the center in green for 10 minutes.

Shirt done! It’s a bright change of pace at the office and, as an engineer, no one says much about my clothing choices.