Art, Family, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Retro – Again

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It seems a truism that “what goes around, comes around” but I hadn’t given it much thought until about a month ago when YA announced that she wanted to do tie-dye.  She normally gives me a lot of grief when I wear one of the two tie-dyed shirts that I still own, so it was a surprise that apparently tie-dye is cool again.  Only pastel now.

The last time we did die-dye was several years ago and in the process we had used up several colors, so new ingredients were needed.  I got onto the website of Dharma Trading Company (a good source for a lot of fabric crafts) and let her choose the colors she wanted.  It took almost 3 weeks for the supplies to arrive since their warehouse is only staffed by 2 people at a time right now and YA probably asked me every other day when the order would arrive.   I ordered a “blank” sundress for myself, YA got two t-shirts and a sweatshirt for herself.

Despite the fact that I’ve done tie-dye for years, YA didn’t trust my knowledge, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.  I sent her off to do her own research and “voila”… all my advice was corroborated, including making sure you wash your fabric to get the sizing out before you start dyeing.  She REALLY didn’t believe me when I had said this was necessary.  Thank you, Google.

She got the dining room table all set up while I mixed the dyes in the individual squirt bottles. Then we tied our projects.  I went for a traditional sunburst pattern while YA only wanted the general “scrunch” look (no particular pattern in the end).  I also wanted to use bright colors so I did my dyeing first and then YA headed back to the kitchen to water down the colors she wanted so her pieces would be pastel.  Lots of color swatches on paper towels before she got what she wanted.

It was hard for her to wait 24 hours while the dye was setting and she was very concerned that if we did the final wash (in the washing machine) the color from my dress would bleed onto her shirts.  Once again, thank you, Google.  They turned out great – I’ve seen her wear both of her t-shirts already and I assume I’ll see the sweatshirt again when the weather cools down.  Unless tie-dye goes out of style before that!

What would you like to see come around again?

31 thoughts on “Retro – Again”

  1. If tie-dye is making a comeback, can macrame be far behind?

    Back in the day, 1969 in Carbondale, I did a lot of both, but never really never got into tie-dyed t-shirts. To my mind, they signaled a pot-smoking affinity that I didn’t have. Some of the hippie vibe resonated with me, but much of it didn’t.

    If you were on my list of people who received Christmas presents from me, you likely got a set of tie-dyed place mats with matching napkins. You might also have been gifted with a macrame plant hanger or even a wall hanging. I still have one of those plant hangers, though admittedly it has been in the basement for at least thirty years.

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      1. Back when tie-dye was retro the first time, I dyed solstice gifts for everyone . I think I did about 35 different pieces and the biggest problem I had was trying to remember who was getting watt.

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  2. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    What I would like and what does come around again, are two very different things. A lot of stuff was not that great the first time around. Macrame, for one thing, was just not that appealing to me, although many folks just went around the bend with macrame during the med-70s.

    More than anything or anyone, I would love to have Barack Obama make a reprise. I would love to feel safe, have the influence of solid judgement, and experience the feeling that someone wants to serve the country, not profit from it or pull his businesses out of a financial hole he dug. I always appreciated Obama, but after the last 4 years he looks like a saint. Even #43 looks stable in retrospect, although I never thought he was competent.

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  3. im looking forward to a comeback of the fedora. i watch the old movies and am aware of how everyone wore their hat a little different. the color the style the crease. that and a top coat made the whole fashion statement.
    today the hats are lame. i feel sorry for the people who’ve invested money in trying to be hat savvy and the choices stink. all the good hat making machinery is gone and the stuff they do today is poor. i imagine the beavers appreciate being left alone but wool hats are like flip flops
    they do the job but have a different statement than italian shoes

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    1. Just yesterday I saw one of those little fillers on TCM between movies and the host was talking about fedoras. He said in the 30s and 40s a man just didn’t go out of the house without his hat. And he showed several clips of Dana Andrews and then Alan Ladd and said that both those actors wore fedoras like nobody’s business!

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  4. I don’t think I ever wore tie-died, but I appreciate it as an advanced warning of a possible patchouli oil infestation. Patchouli oil, or as we called it, “eau de hip”, was the original reason for social distancing.

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    1. Oh Bill, I LOVE YOU. I could not have said it better myself. I have several dear friends that I have to socially distance myself from because, to this day, they’re still wearing patchouli oil, and I just can’t tolerate it. I hate to think of myself as a judgemental person, but asking me to be gracious in the presence of patchouli oil, is asking too much.

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      2. It must be like cilantro. If patchouli oil smelled to everyone the way it smells to us, it would not exist, except as a repellant.

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        1. Had you been born a decade or two earlier, Ben, you’d know the name. During the late sixties and early seventies we lived in a haze of patchouli oil and incense, some of us have not fully recovered.

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    2. Put me on the list of patchouli haters; it actually makes me a little nauseous. I’ve had the same thought that you’ve had, Bill, that people can’t possibly be smelling it the same way I’m smelling it and still wear it.

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  7. in a soon to be realized world buying a bag of pot and rolling up a big ol joint to puff on while eating a bowl of pecan sandies with a dr pepper is about as good as non life gets. im not as concerned about about being 100% every minute of every day as life goes on. being tweaked in a modified direction is an option worth considering. who said my original take was the right one anyway?

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    1. I remember the paper fortune teller from the 60’s. Maybe around 1967 or so? I don’t think of it as a 70’s thing. The other stuff, yeah, that was definitely 70’s.

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      1. In the University of Minnesota Wilson Library, I once checked out a book of cartoons that was printed during the Civil War as a fundraiser for the Sanitary Commission, kind of a forerunner of the Red Cross. In the book there was an illustration of a group of young ladies, their attention focused on one who was holding one of those paper fortune tellers. Probably the only thing obstructing research into the origins of that thing is knowing what they called it. Obviously it’s at least a century older than the 1960s.

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  13. Inexpensive VW Vans – there is one just like our last one that “lives” just a few blocks from here, and I keep wishing it was ours every time I see it.. There is a new VW Microbus in the works, but looks like it till be around $40,000, and won’t be ready till 2022. 😐

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