Tie-Dye Basics: Professional Guidance for Getting Great Results at Home!

Tie-dye is super simple and easy to do yourself, right? Well yes... and not always! There are some definite rules of the road that you need to follow in order to get exactly the results you want. Not all dyes are created equal, and there's a lot of conflicting information out there.

Take it from me-- I've been living the tie-dye pro life for almost half of my life! My goal is to get you ready, get you set, and help launch you into feeling confident and comfortable with every part of the process.

In this course you're given all of my insider info that I've collected over the years through formal and informal study, trial and error, establishing and growing a successful dye biz, and teaching hundreds and hundreds of kids, teens, and adults how to become tie-dye proficient.

There are SO MANY exciting and helpful features inherent in this course! Here are some of my faves:

1. One course, unlimited projects.

Unlike our in-person classes, I’m not just taking you through one project-- I’m empowering you to come back to the course over and over again to try new combinations, patterns, and techniques for an endless variety of projects.

2. Filmed beautifully & clearly.

A professional dual-camera set up with an overhead view of my hands and work station. Enjoy the audio clarity of the body mic I wore while filming, and a beautiful lighting rig that makes all the right visual details pop. This is not a cell-phone video course!

3. Ask questions, share your photos, get feedback.

I love that you can ask a question or leave a comment or photo on literally any section in any part of the course. Not only will you get a public response or answer from the instructor (Jess), you can also crowdsource, because everyone who has enrolled can also chime in! As the course ages, our community gets stronger.

4. Sources that save you money and time.

Curated, insider’s link lists with all my tried & true sources for dyes, tools, materials, blanks, online resources, and more. It took me years to narrow down what works and what's worth buying-- and you get all that info immediately! We'll be updating links if & when better sources become available or if a favorite is no longer available.

5. Access your course from any device.

You own this course for life. All content is streaming, stored online. There are no big files on your computer to worry about, and you can connect to any part of the course from any of your devices-- phone, tablet, laptop, any time. Certain parts of the course are available for download if you should want that option, too! We've created handouts and cheat sheets for you to use at home, and those are printable.

6. Intersects all learning styles.

Multimedia content (infographics, photos, videos, written step-by-steps, etc) makes interdisciplinary learning easy to achieve. I don’t want to just be a talking head endless video droning on and on, so those portions are sectioned out; content is easy to find, organized and thoughtfully arranged so that you can find & review exactly the content you need.

7. A course that grows with you.

Check this out: my courses have updating functionality, which means as we update and add to lists & galleries, your content updates, too. When my studio creates content that would be applicable to this course, we'll add it in-- free of charge. Your course materials are always the latest version, because it’s all stored in the cloud, and you automatically access the most recent iteration. Pay once, get an ever-evolving product. It’s awesome, and it means something to me.

In short: there's a LOT of content in this course, and the built-in features make it an even better experience.

A few words from your instructor:

Hiya, this is Jess. The hardest part of promotion is self-promotion, but I think it’s important to tell you about what I bring to the table and why people enjoy learning from me.

Before earning my M.A. in Crafts Education, my main body of experience came from leading the textile crafts program at an award-winning overnight camp for most of my twenties and early thirties. In my time as Program Leader, I taught tie-dye, shibori, batik, and candle making to hundreds of children, teens, and young adults. I helped revitalize and streamline our entire studio set-up (which was no small feat), led the purchasing and sourcing for all our dyes, materials, and tools, and got to really develop a method for instructing that I passed on to my assistants and the amazing people who led the program after I moved on.

Being the head of all things dye-related for so many years was a ton of work, an incredibly in-depth real life education, and it taught me more than my graduate degree did when it comes to the things I pass on to you in this course.

I feel really, deeply familiar with fiber reactive dyes, using them to dye in lots of different styles, the chemistry that makes them all work well, and the common pitfalls & confusion points that new dyers experience.

And that's on purpose.

Those groups can be great... of course... but do you really need to be in another one? I'll be honest and say I want to divest from Facebook as much as I can, and not make my students spend any more time on there than they already need to. Our community is built into the features of this platform, and you're already here.

In every part of every section of this course, I've turned the comments feature on. It works like Facebook, in that we have organized threads with replying and photo-sharing capabilities. I love that our capacity for community exists within the course itself, with helpful threads on each section & lecture, keeping you organized and able to find exactly what you're looking for. Imagine being able to ask your questions, get answers from me and from others, and even answer other students’ questions in your own words (if you want to). Share photos of successes and struggles, and we'll cheer each other on. It's a sweet feature, and the more people who participate, the better it gets.