Custom Orders

 I love getting custom orders!

My most recent was from a friend who is working in a chocolate store. The store is brightly colored and she wanted tie dyed shirts that matched (as close as possible) the color theme of the store. 

Matching colors from a photo is really hard. The lighting, the exposure, the camera, the skill of the photographer all play into the factors of the quality and realism of the image. 

She sent me these images. 

Orange, hot pink, green and purple. Where is the purple?

She wanted four shirts, all the same with these colors. That is easy enough, but wait. Where is the purple. 

I studied the pictures and told her I would have to play mad scientist and try and custom create that "purple" because it looks gray. She said not to worry about that purple, go with something brighter. Thank goodness!!!

My biggest concern is what am I gonna do with that green. Now that I have the ok to use a different purple, the purple can go next to the pink. They will co exist perfectly. The orange and the pink will play very well together. But that green. It will make mud if it mingles with the purple or the orange or the pink. Well, now that the purple will be darker,  I might be able to get away with the green and the purple  but still, in the pieces of the pie, that green is going to touch something and it has the potential to be ugly. 

I try to explain this to people who want custom colors. While the colors look great together in a design or even as complementaries on the color wheel, there is not a boundary or boarder between the colors in tie dye and they will mix with each other. Not all colors are meant to mix. they make browns, grays, and ugly muddy colors that can ruin a color pallet for a tie dye design. 

We are going to lean into it. I'm going to make one shirt, see how it turns out and go from there. If we have success, I'll continue on with the order. If it makes mud, I'll send pics and explain what is happening and see if we can revamp this order. 

For these shirts I used dye powders from Dharma Trading Co. The colors I chose were tangerine and dragon fruit mixed at full strength and chartreuse and lilac mixed at half strength.  I used a 100% cotton Gildan HD shirt that was soaked in soda ash solution 20 mins or more and then spun out in the washing machine until damp. I used a spiral twist on the shirt and laid down the colors in a pie pattern for distinct spiral arms. 

Here was the outcome:

Success!!

My biggest concern was the green and where it landed next to the orange or the pink, and it didn't get muddy at all!!! What I had meant to do was change the spiral color order on each shirt, as you can see I did on two of them.   

*sigh* 

Regardless, SHE LOVED THEM!

I am very grateful that she was so happy with her shirts, the colors are gorge! I will be adding this color palette to my inventory for sure!

Thanks for hanging out!

Till next time!