Every year, the Hope for Kids service group has fundraisers to obtain money for expenses such as material costs. The main focus is however, to fund a year’s schooling for selected kids from the hospital. This year, a doctor will choose the most appropriate kids, since we are not in the position to judge which children would be most suitable for the schooling. Fundraising is mostly done on sports events, and this year we choose to use the girls volleyball tournament as an opportunity to sell handmade items. For several years now bandana sales were very successful, and this time we decided to make them using tie and dye technique, which can produce beautiful and colorful results.

We started on Thursday the 19th October during service, using a technique taught my Ms Tanuja, where a piece of cloth is swirled by turning a fork stuck in the middle. The bunch of cloth is then painted and finally opened up again, to reveal the colors and shapes created. It was fun to do this since I never knew how the end result looked like. At the end of the session, we only had 12 bandanas, so Nicolina, Seth and I met after the 3-way conferences the following day and made over 20 more. We decided to try out new techniques, and a variety of shapes was created when we folded and twisted the cloths in different ways. Intending to come up with a less time-consuming technique, Seth and I diluted the remaining paint with water and sprinkled and threw the paint on the bandanas, which created a beautiful effect. This way, the three of us, each one with a different color, made six bandanas at once.

I came up with this technique. I tied some points of the cloth with rubber bands and colored it. Photo credits: Nicolina Sorensen

This bandana was made by folding the cloth lengthwise several times. Photo credits: Seth Keerthiratne

Knowing that the work will support children suffering from cancer is a great motivation. I also appreciate this chance to try out an art style that I never did before and I learned a great deal coming up and experimenting with different techniques. The bandanas will be sold on SAISA girls volleyball. We also plan to have a stand at the upcoming Food and Fun Fair and other events to earn more money for this worthy cause.