I hesitate to call this work Tie Dye, because there are many of us doing things today that were not thought of in the 60’s! I hand tie my fabrics with Sinew, a waxed polyester thread. The sinew allows you to create very intricate designs & tie them very tightly. My specialties is the Mandala, these designs are drawn on carefully folded fabric with a washable marker & tied off into segments with the sinew. These segments are then dyed with several shades of the same color, or a mix of colors to give them great depth. When learning to do these Mandala shirts, I would easily spend 2 hours on a shirt & had found myself doubling that at times for a single T-shirt. As I have grown & found my own individual method, these times have improved.
I was influenced by the Grateful Dead as a young man. I loved the music & the colorful people that followed them around. I sold shirts at the concerts in the early 80’s. I was called Grateful Dan by a girl I worked with in high school, so I have decided to use it as my online shop name here on Etsy.
It could be 10 years ago now at yearly college reunion I was re-introduced to tie dye by our dear friend Peg & my wife’s college roommate from the late 70’s. After the reunion we decided to purchase all that would be needed to host a tie dye party ourselves & invited lots of kids & their parents too. Well the kids had a blast, but the parents enjoyed the quiet time without their kids, so I had lots of shirt to play with! That snowballed into the necessity of sales.
Etsy has pushed us to offer new items & develop a product that will attract the attention you need to remain fruitful. I do hope you Love what you see here in Dye Works by GratefulDan. Thanks for your interest!