Hello from me

[ShadowFlame]

Hey Guys!

My name's Owen, I'm a Uni student doing Science at Monash Uni down in Melbourne Australia.

The reason i'm here is that i have an increadably good idea, but no way of accomplishing it.

The Science society at monash is having a Ball later in the year, and the theme is "Fire and Ice".

My wonderful idea is to get an old black suit from an op-shop or something, slice the legs up to the knees and insert flairs with awesome firey tie-dye patterns.  I'll try to line the jacket with the same pattern, as well as getting enough for a belt, hat band and armband (over the jacket).

There is only one slight problem in all this.  I have no idea how to tie dye anything!!!

so my question is this: is it possible to get a consistant fire pattern out of a tie-dye, and is it possible for me to achieve this by sometime in September?

[Jeau]

Hi there Owen--I'm in a bit of a rush out the door so I'll let some of the tie-dye geniuses here answer your question in detail, but the answers are certainly "yes" and "yes"!  What a cool idea, quite original!  Just wanted to say welcome to the forum (from Arizona and New Hampshire USA!)... 

[ShadowFlame]

Hey Jeau, thanks for the welcome!

I've had a look around for flame patterns but can't seem to find any nice steady repeating ones

and nobody is replying to this... maybe i should repost something in some other part of the forum

[pburch]

I think you can come up with a repeating flame pattern. Take a rectangle of fabric, then accordian-fold it in wide pleats. Draw a curve across the width of the fabric with a pencil, not too complicated but whatever flame-edge shape you like. Grab the fabric up in small folds as you work along this line, then tie; after soda-soaking, drop thickened red dye along the crunched-up line, yellow on the inside, and thickened dark dye on the outside. That should give you a repeating flame. To see what I mean about the folds along the pencil line, see the Wiki tutorial on tie-dyeing a heart pattern.

With some trial and error you should be able to find an excellent way to get exactly the effects you're asking for. What you're asking for seems like a pretty reasonable thing. Be sure to use a good fiber reactive dye, such as Procion MX or Drimarene K. Buy your dyes from Kraftkolour, which is near Melbourne, or mail-order them from Batik Oetoro, in Sidney.

Paula

[ShadowFlame]

ok, so that would give a few large flame patterns set apart from each other?  that would work, but isn't quite what i had in mind.

oh, wait, if i wanted them connected i'd just have to draw the line back around on itself, yes?

I think your right though, i just need to grab some stuff and fiddle with it until I get something that works.

[pburch]

For an example of a nice triple-spiral flame, check out this June 5, 2006, post by dancingbearmama, complete with instructions. That's another possible way to get a nice flame effect.

Paula

[Jeau]

Wow Paula--hadn't seen those pictures yet, amazing!  My brain is spinning as I try to imagine how that shirt got twisted and folded like that.  I do hope we can get a version onto the wiki.

Owen--have you considered any other methods, like batik, or some other resist?  It's not tie-dye per se, but might have similar appeal.  It's easy to create details with batik, since you can draw the design directly, especially since your design area is limited to small pieces of fabric.  Just a thought.