A Swirly Afternoon: Big B's First Tie-Dye

Yesterday afternoon, we loaded up the cooler, the truck, and the kiddos and took them to a local RV park where our community radio station was celebrating its fourth birthday. We are very fortunate to live in a city that supports local music and local radio, and the friends of the station came out en masse. As the station's birthday coincides with the late, great Jerry Garcia's birthday, tie-dye was the dress code for many music fans.

The radio station had set up a kids activity tent, complete with buckets of colorful dye and plain white t-shirts. Big B, who rarely gravitates toward craftiness when there are a ton of kids running around, immediately asked to dye a shirt. We have dyed shirts with less traditional methods, but never this tried and true way--so of course, I was thrilled.

We found the middle of the front of the shirt and used that as our starting point, then twisted the rest of the shirt into a long snake. Big B chose seven rubber bands and, together, we bound the shirt at regular intervals.
Big B's favorite color has always been blue. He found the right bucket, grabbed some tongs, and began dunking the shirt for maximum saturation. We then left it to soak in the bucket for a bit while we enjoyed good friends and good music.
After a while, we came back to check on our creation, and hang it up to dry until we were ready to go home.We took a moment to look at Big B's shirt next to the many others that were created by our friends and neighbors. Each beautiful and different, yet made more beautiful by being part of something bigger than themselves. Just like the community we live in.