When art teacher Mr. Anthony Pernell set out to decide for the final project of his fiber arts class, his main goal was for the students to have fun. He wanted students to do something creative yet easy and familiar. Then he had an idea: Tie-dying!

Tie-dying is the process of folding, twisting, or crumpling fabric, usually a garment, followed by applying dye, adding colorful patterns to the fabric. This technique has recently gotten very popular, especially at SHS. Pernell saw this trend and decided to implement it into his education.

“I figured a lot of students would like to do it, because they like tie-dye,” Pernell said. “It’s like a motivation to stay in touch for the rest of the school year.”

And Pernell was right. Many students are already familiar with the concept and seem to be happy with the final project. Senior Tiffany Howard has done tie-dye before and says she’s super excited to get to do tie-dye in school.

“I’ve done t-shirts for my friends, and I did an entire outfit for the tie-dye day during spirit week,” Howard said.

To make the project even more fun, Pernell gave the students as many choices as possible when it came to the design of their tie-dyes.

“I showed a video that shows five different basic tie-dye patterns,” Pernell said “And then I’ll let them pick whichever pattern they want.”

Not only patterns, but colors and even garment is totally up to the students, according to Pernell. He says most people choose to just use a normal t-shirt with or without print already on them, but the students are free to tie-dye, for example, a pajamas or a hat if they want.

When deciding for the Fiber Arts class to do tie-dye, Pernell also took into consideration the students’ other classes. He knew students may be both bored and stressed from theoretical subjects, especially during finals.

“Usually we just sit there and work quietly on the same old stuff every day,” Howard said. “But this was a real change from normal.”