Walking into the campus center Coffee House on Monday, October 9th, seemed like such a routine occurrence. However, this night there was a tie dying event at 8 o’clock and because my friend is a tie dying fanatic she wanted to go. But I had never done anything like this, and I had no idea what to expect. I left my last lecture in F Building at 7:45 and went straight to the Coffee House to secure us a table. When I first arrived, there were a decent amount of people sitting and waiting. However, around 7:55 we started lining up, and the line was past Dunkin Donuts within minutes. As time went on it seemed like the line continued to grow and before I knew it the line had stretched out past the glass doors and into the main hallway of the Campus Center.

I was not the only one who was shocked at the turnout. The staff working the event were not set up or prepared for this many people at all, and at one point during the event someone had to come and bring them the backup stock of shirts. We stood in line until about ten after 8 and then finally we saw the workers start setting up the tables with tarps and the different colors of dye, and then finally the line started moving.

We got up to the table and one of the workers swiped our cards, and then we moved over to a different table and told them what size shirt we were. After picking out what size we wanted, the worker dipped the shirt in a bucket filled with some kind of liquid. I still don’t know what it was, but one of the people in front of me said it was to help the shirt hold the color better. We picked up a paper with instructions on how to make different designs, rubber bands, and gloves along the way, and then finally we were ready to start. The tables were not very big, which made it difficult to lay your shirt out and rubber band it, but we had to make it work. Although I had never tie dyed before, I didn’t want to use the paper, so I just made up my own design.

Coming in I had an idea in my head about what colors I wanted to use, but of course when I actually got to the table, I saw someone else’s shirt and immediately fell in love with their color scheme. I put my shirt down on the table and began working. I probably should have looked at the paper because I had no idea what I was doing, and I just picked up the dye colors I wanted and sprayed all over the shirt with no rhymer reason.

When you finished your shirt, the staff gave you a ziplock baggie to put it in so the excess dye wouldn’t get all over your hands, which it was anyway. I didn’t know you had to let it sit a whole day before taking it out and washing it, and I was pretty upset about it because naturally I wanted to see my shirt at that very moment. However, the next day when I finally got to cut the rubber bands off and see what it looked like I wasn’t so sure I actually liked what I had done. But I washed it and dried it anyway, and when it finally came out of the dryer I fell in love with it, and immediately went back to my room to try it on, but ended up wearing it for the rest of the day.