Mount Olive Outreach

Last week we went to the Mount Olive Outreach near Lenasia with HIVSA to share our skills with the local community. We gave people from the surrounding area the chance to come and dye fabrics and T-shirts. We hope that the experience will inspire them to start their own businesses.

The smiling faces in these pictures tell the story...

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie

0835689150

www.dyeandprints.co.za

Kids LOVE tie dye!

Something very special happens inside a child when they open their first tie dye...they realise that the power is in their hands to make something very special for themselves. It ignites their excitement and opens their minds to the idea that they can be captain of their own ship.

The experience is amplified further when they wear what they have made. People stop them and ask them where they got such a beautiful T-shirt and they get the chance to reply "I made it myself." The T-shirt becomes an automatic feedback system for building confidence.

These are all pretty "deep" concepts and some will argue that the reason that kids love tie dye so much is because they have so much FUN!

You decide for yourself...

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie

0835689150

www.dyeandprints.co.za

Sew Easy

I taught a class at the Sew Easy Head Office on Saturday and had an enormous amount of fun! The students produced such gorgeous T-shirts I just have to show them off. Consider the fact that these are all first attempts...

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie

0835689150

Magical Feedback!

Today I received some magical feedback from one of my customers. It is moments like these that make all the work worthwhile...

"Through all the usual duties and extra honey collection, I tried your dye out on cheap items from Pep Stores. And I stood amazed about the deep, vibrant colours!!! This was also a learning experience as I folded one of the T-shirts wrong! I was so excited. I e-mailed my friends all over South Africa with the photos and they are all thrilled.

I first dyed the one dress and T-shirt turquoise and the following day I folded it and dyed it navy. The other dress and T-shirt I folded and dyed with Brights. The 2 little dresses are for my granddaughter and the Brights T-shirt is for her mother, my daughter. Last night when they phoned me after receiving the photos, Samantha (granddaughter, 2 years old) told me "Ouma, bllue! Blue!!"

Thanks for your book that introduced me to your colourful world. It opened amazing doors for me!"

Kathy Du Plessis

I wish I could bottle such magical moments. Thank you to all of YOU who embark on this beautiful journey with me. The experience is amplified by your voices.

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie

+27835689150

Kids Absolutely LOVE Dyecraft!

Why kids absolutely LOVE dyecraft...

• They have to dress up in apron and gloves to do it.
• It gets messy.
• They see the colour wheel come to life.
• They work with their hands.
• It gives them a sense of achievement and self-worth.
• It is a means of self-expression and uniqueness.
• They LOVE the Wow Moment.
• They get to wear what they have made...again and again...and again...

Dyecraft is a kids confidence-builder, and it is FUN!

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie

0835689150

http://www.dyeandprints.co.za/

Maranatha Bana

Last week I had the most amazing time at Maranatha Bana in Pretoria North. I made rainbow spiral T-shirts with more than 150 kids, ranging from little ones all the way up to teenagers.

Maranatha Bana is a privately funded NGO that supports needy children in the local community through the intervention of a local church. They supply housing, food, education, sports facilities and other activities from which the children benefit.

I had the most amazing time there. The kids were SO excited about the shirts that they made that many of them decided to put them on and wear them when they were still sopping wet out of the rinse. It was quite an experience to hear their excited voices and see them all running around in their new T-shirts on the playground.

Even though I was absolutely exhausted when I got home that evening, I could not fall asleep. My head just kept spinning with all the happy little faces and rainbow bursts of colour from the day's fun activities.

Each time that I work in an NGO like this one, I look around me and realise how lucky I have been to have grown up with both of my parents in a supporting family environment.

Hats off to Maranatha Bana for taking care of these kids. You guys are doing an awesome job!

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie

+27835689150

Infinite Potential

One of the ladies who works with my dye, Vera Jonkers, sent me this gorgeous photo this week. She crush dyed the fabric in blues and sea greens before making up this lovely dress for her daughter for her matric dance.

The picture reminded me why I fell in love with the medium in the first place.

Dye and prints can turn a piece of white fabric into ANYTHING that you want it to be. Just think about it...ANYTHING.

Start with a piece of plain white cloth, close your eyes, and dream. Then open them and get to work to make the transformation. It is a truly magical journey.

It is the potential to turn plain white cloth into fashion garments for the catwalk, decor items and soft furnishings for the home, corporate gifts and clothing, props and sets for the theatre...

It also holds the potential to teach children about cause and effect, chemistry, physics, art and their own innate creativity. Adults can find an outlet to express themselves or a way to earn an income from their handwork.

Best of all, it is FUN!

Children and adults enjoy the process. It crosses the line between different age groups, different genders and different races. Cloth is a global language than everybody can speak, regardless of where they have come from, what they have learned or where they are going.

Sometimes, when I speak about cloth to corporate men in suits, they look at me skeptically and say "This has nothing to do with us. Fabric is for women and fashion designers." I ask them the simple question "Would you leave the house in the morning without your clothes?"

"Of course not!" is the defensive response.

Whether you realise it or not, every human being has a much closer association with fabric than they might acknowledge. It is a part of our daily lives. It is part of being human.

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie

+27835689150

Squidoo - Another Free Resource

As an entrepreneur who started a business on a shoestring budget, I have explored almost every free resource for marketing available to man (and woman).

Squidoo is a fabulous place to begin with online content and a good training ground for those who want to learn the basics of building websites themselves. I have a couple of Squidoo pages that have served me well for some years now.

http://www.squidoo.com/TieDyeFabricsInFashion

This was my first Squidoo page where I wrote my first article about hand dyed fabrics in fashion, from my perspective. I have manufactured hand dyed fabrics for the South African fashion industry for some time and have always believed that the medium belongs to haute couture and not to the hippies, as is popularly believed.

http://www.squidoo.com/TheWowMoment

Every time I open a fresh tie dye, I experience a heart-stopping thrill to see the pattern unfold for the first time. I call it the Wow Moment. After 17 years of working with dye, the experience has not changed. The Wow Moment happens for me every time. Read more about it on this Squidoo page.

http://www.squidoo.com/KidsJustLoveTieDye

Of course, kids love the Wow Moment as well. Tie dye is also a valuable developmental tool for teaching kids. Learn some of the good reasons for teaching kids to tie dye on this Squidoo page.

Squidoo is an amazing resource. It is free, and it has great traction with Google. If you are looking for a place to start building your online presence, I can recommend Squidoo highly.

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie

+27835689150

Keeping It Contemporary

Different people have different perceptions about tie dye. For many, it evokes pictures of long-haired hippies and their alternative lifestyle.

Did you know that tie dye has been use in fashion throughout the ages?

It is a national artform in Japan. Do a Google search for the term "shibori" and see how many pages come up with information about hand dyed fabrics. The Japanese people have used hand dyed techniques to embellish their kimonos for centuries and you can find their hand dyed textiles in their national museums and galleries.

In India the knowledge is passed down from father to son and mother to daughter and India is steeped in a culture of hand embellished textiles. Indian women will sit for hours and stitch individual grains of rice into their saris, which they then hand over to the dye technicians to colour with dye. Afterwards, they sit and carefully unpick every stitch to reveal the delicate pattern underneath.

Countries like Kenya and Ghana produce signature textiles that reflect their vibrant culture and tell the stories of their people.

Local designers like Stoned Cherrie and Sun Goddess have made extensive use of hand dyed finishes to differentiate their clothes with an authentic African feel and charm. Tie dye allows a designer to create garments in season colours, on-demand.

In Europe, top designers like Prada and Versace are doing the same. Go to http://www.ohlalamag.com/en/2010/01/versace-spring-summer-2010-round-3.html to see how Versace has used tie dye to create the most stunning silk shirts for men in 2010.

How you view tie dye is a matter of your individual perspective and framework. What is clear is that it is versatile and timeless. It has been used for as long as people have been making cloth and it will continue to add value to the clothing industry for as long as people crave to express their individuality through their clothes.

Sun Goddess 2005

Hippy tie-dye or couture chic? The debate continues... I was determined to prove the latter true and set out to supply many top local designers to prove my point.

In 2005 Sun Goddess commissioned this T-shirt for their SA Fashion Week Collection. They were looking for an interpretation of the sun in their season colours. I tied very tight elastic bands in rings and then added the yellow, red and brown using a syringe to make sure it went only where I wanted it. The sun motif is only on the front of the T-shirt and the back is plain brown.

The headscarf is a chiffon silk. I have always found the shapes of Ndebele patterns inspirational, and I had a vision to create a diamond pattern in colours that came from our national flag. I called the piece Rainbow Nation. This was the first time I made this pattern and Vanya Mangaliso was excited to snap it up for her collection.

I just made it again for Contemporary Dyecraft (Metz Press) and you can now learn how to make it for yourself, using the step-by-step photos in the book. Rainbow Nation will always be one of my personal favourite patterns. I had a lot of fun inventing and refining it, and I am always delighted with the outcome.

I have dyed chiffon silk, raw silk, habotai, T-shirting, linen, muslin and twill for Sun Goddess over the years. Tie dye is an opportunity to create something distinctly unique. It is an opportunity to choose pattern and colourway. It is an opportunity for designers to create limited edition custom cloth, on-demand.

When I first began to understand the implications for manufacturers, it blew my mind. Many years later, the possibilities remain endless.

What do you think? Hippy tie-dye or couture chic?

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie

Picture by Ivan Naude http://www.planetivan.com for SA Fashion Week

JJ Schoeman

I produced this custom-dyed twill for JJ Schoeman for SA Fashion Week 2005. This particular garment went with him all the way to New York Fashion Week in the same year.

JJ supplied me with plain white twill and a brief for "something African." I began by planning the layout in dressmakers chalk on the fabric to make sure that the shapes were evenly spaced and proportionately sized. It was a tedious job stitching in each shield shape by hand. Each one had to be individually stitched and shaped.

First, I crush dyed the fabric in golden yellow. Then, I added another layer of brown dye. After rinsing all the excess away thoroughly with lots of clean water (I would hate to dye the model too!) the stitching was unpicked to reveal the pattern.

JJ turned it into this stunning catwalk creation!

See how he has cleverly added beadwork to compliment the dyed shapes. The natural wooden beads were a good choice to add authentic detailing in keeping with the natural look and feel of the cloth. Central Africa has a rich culture of tie dye and I often look to the textiles from Kenya and Ghana for inspiration.

This beautiful picture was taken by Ivan Naude for SA Fashion Week. Ivan has tracked my work through his lens for some time now and most recently he took the pictures for my book, Contemporary Dyecraft (Metz Press). Find out more about this amazing photographer at http://www.planetivan.com

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie

Marion & Lindie

There has been renewed interest in the work I produced for the catwalk since my book is about to launch. I dyed this flowing chiffon silk dress for Lindie Grenfell for her 2005 SA Fashion Week collection. She supplied me with a white "shell", some colour swatches and instructions where she wanted the colours placed.

It is quite a challenge to produce exactly what the designer requires, especially under tight time restraints. I had 24 hours to turn this around. There was no time to play.

I created the white split between the two colours by binding the fabric very tightly with elastic bands along the line I wanted. Then I suspended the garment to hang into a bath of blue dye. I drained that off, turned it around, and hung it into the brown mixture. Lindie added delicate detailing with spattering of matching sequence to give it life.

Although I had produced hundreds of fabrics for the catwalk by this stage, I had always worked behind the scenes, and this was my first show that I actually saw the finished garments strut down the ramp.

Whenever I look at this picture I am filled with a surge of emotion as I remember how it felt. If the camera had panned to me in the audience at this moment, it would have captured me, sobbing uncontrollably at the sight.

I work on the messy end of textiles. I work far back in the production process and do not always get to see what I have helped to create. I can understand the lure for designers who produce shows year after year. It is a powerful emotional experience to see something that you have envisioned in your mind's eye, step onto the catwalk in lifesize glory.

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie

* Picture by Ivan Naude and used with his permission.

Marianne Fassler

Marianne Fassler has enjoyed a career in fashion for more than 35 years. She started out as a fine artist, and very soon decided that her passion for clothing should be her commercial creative outlet. Her eclectic style and attention to detail have kept her at the forefront of the industry for all these years. No mean feat in an industry that sees labels rise and fall overnight.

Marianne does business into Europe with her Leopard Frock label and her children's range, named after her granddaughter, Sibella, is a staple in children's boutiques nationwide. She showcases at fashion shows locally and abroad. She is as active in the industry now as she has ever been.

She is probably best known for her leopard spot prints to which she has always been partial.

Marianne has a passion for hand embellished detail on her garments and will go to great lengths to set them apart with custom dyeing and hand made beadwork.

I produced commercial finishes for Marianne for some years. I produced my famous Floating Hearts five seasons running. They were still selling well when I declined to do any more. These finicky little dyejobs are very tricky and my nerves simply could not take them any more. I also produced the signature ribbing used as trim on many of the garments. We started with a pink rib knit or viscose lycra wich I bound up tightly with elastics. The fabric was then painstakingly dyed in three colours. Because the pattern worked out too sparse on the fabric, it was necessary to untie the fabric and repeat the whole process from scratch to fill in the visual spaces. Marianne's work was always a labour of love for me, and more about aesthetics than the money.

Marianne has been kind enough to write the Foreword for my book, Contemporary Dyecraft (Metz Press). Look out for it in stores next year and see what she has to say about hand dyed finishes in fashion.

See her collection at http://www.leopardfrock.co.za

(This picture supplied with kind permission for use in the book.)

Contemporary Dyecraft

The journey of this book began on 2001, when I began writing the first draft. It took me five months to lay down the first copy. I did my research in the stores. I walked into the craft section of every bookstore I went into and picked up all the books by local publishers. The Metz Press books all had a certain look and feel in my hands and I decided that this was the publisher for me.

I then spent some years trying to get hold of the publisher. I sent volleys of e-mails and heard nothing back from Metz.

On a level I gave up and moved on to other focusses. After all, you cannot kill all of your time on one thing.

Then, in 2007 I went to Cape Town to teach at Keen On Crafts with Craftwise Magazine. I had a free session where I could choose to do any craft that I wanted to and I decided to do embroidery. The teacher was a wonderful lady called Fransie Snyman. She asked me if I was not interested in writing a book, since I knew so much about my medium. I told her about my dream to publish. She told me that she had written a book and could put me in touch with her publisher, Metz Press.

I sent a volley of e-mails to the address she gave me, and heard nothing.

Six months later I went to the Keen On Crafts with Craftwise Magazine event in Pretoria. A friendly blonde lady walked up to me, and introduced herself as Wilsia Metz. Her sister Fransie, had told her all about me. She had signed up for my class.

From there things have flowed and Contemporary Dyecraft is almost a reality. It will be available in stores from January 2010!

My advice to aspiring writers : Never give up.