Guest Blogger - Tie Dye Judy

Hello. My name is Judy Sall, and I am a life-long crafter/artist. I spent my childhood learning to draw, make family Christmas gifts from scraps and odds and ends, and really loved all the crafty things we got to do in school. I started painting in the late 60’s, then got interested in fiber arts towards the 80’s. Finally, in 1998, I decided to try my hand at tie-dye. I had never dyed anything before, and was a little unnerved by the idea, but I got a starter kit and instruction book, and that got me hooked!
Color has always been a very important part of my life, and the brighter the better! So tie-dye was a natural for me. I started selling my work in a small local craft show in 1998, then added my website shop in 2002. We moved to Arizona in 2003, and I found a number of small craft shows in the area to sell my work at, and gradually built my little tie-dye business up. Today, I have an on-line presence at http://www.artfire.com/users/tiedyejudy. I have sold wholesale to a couple of retailers, and just created my first instructional video, demonstrating how to tie a ‘Bamboo pattern’, which is posted on my blog ‘www.hippiewear.blogspot.com’. This is a picture of the pattern I am demonstrating:

One of the reasons I love to tie-dye is that no two items are ever alike. I have always been attracted to unique, original art and clothing, and find there are still people out there who feel the same. I do a lot of custom orders, which I find to be very rewarding. I feel like I truly can provide ‘Wearable Art’ for people with my tie-dye.

Of course, there are favorite patterns that are always popular, such as the Rainbow Swirl, shown here:

This pattern looks complex, but it is really very simple to do! I hope to have a demo on my blog soon showing how I tie and dye the swirl pattern, one that is worth learning if you are interested in selling your own tie-dye.
I encourage anyone out there who has given thought to trying tie-dye to give it a shot. There are many more books and videos out there today than when I started dyeing, and the supplies are readily available. I will be glad to share my resources if anyone wants to contact me at tiedyejudy@hotmail.com.
I want to thank Chris for the wonderful opportunity to share a little about my favorite art form, tie-dye!

The Green Eyed Monster Ate My Washing Machine

Sorry to have been missing for so long. I had a good excuse. You see the Green Eyed Monster ate my washing machine.

A few weeks ago I was experimenting with some Shibori dyed fabrics and one of a kind fabrics. One of the fabrics I was affectionately calling the Green Eyed Monster. Before work on Friday morning I added the Green Eyed Monster to the washing machine. Two hours later I heard an alarm going off on the washing machine. The pump that removes the water from the tub had stopped working. So here I am with sopping wet fabric that needs a lot more rinsing before it is finished. I am so very glad we have a clothes line in the back yard.

I called for service and was told it would be a week and a half before they could have a repairman look at it. Luckily my husband is very handy. He had the machine working a few days earlier and for $100.00 less than we would have paid for repairs.

Lesson learned, no more monsters in the appliances. I guess in the future I'll need to choose safer names like Daffodil or Daylily.