She slips her hands into the restrictive latex gloves, tightening her stained smock, she prepares the noxious solution of water and soda ash. The sink now full with the faded gray unction sits in wait to soak the blank canvas.

After mixing chemicals and dyes into bottles, fashion design teacher Donna Carlson is ready; her students can begin to learn about fabric.

“Tye-dyeing is a great way of learn about getting patterns onto fabric,” Carlson said. “By playing with the way the garment is bound and dyed, the outcome of the shirt is affected.”

Carlson, who will be retiring after this year, has made tye-dyeing a part of her fashion design curriculum since she began teaching the course. Students in fashion design first study the principles of design and once that is done, they learn about the elements. The process of dying and creating fabric is one of the elements being emphasized. Tye-dying is the next step for fashion design students after they have successfully completed their color schemes and color principles unit. It is the student’s task to create a color scheme on the fabric while playing with the design element of pattern on the shirt itself.

Tye-dyeing, however, is not the only hands-on activity used to teach students the elements of design. Fashion students also get to experience the age old tradition of weaving cloth. Students are given looms and a plethora of stretchable cloth loops that are woven to form a small square of fabric that, if they choose, can be made into a pot holder. Students first apply band vertically across the loom followed by weaving over and under horizontally. After the entire loom is filled, students are given a crochet hook to seal the edges, and after that is completed students submit their finished work for a grade.

“Students get to learn a lot by weaving,” Carlson said. “Like how there are two kinds of fabric; knit and woven. They also get to learn how to do a plain weave and the difference between a warp and a woof.”

By allowing students to learn through more than just a text book, Carlson’s methods have encouraged her students to not only learn but to acquire skills that they may use in the future.

“It’s fun and cool,” sophomore Joyce Moon said. “It’s a lot simpler to weave than I thought it would be and it’s awesome to see the end result and know I made it.”