This afternoon, I went to make tiedyes with the youth group that my daughters Luisa and Sara are leaders of. Sara was busy preparing for her final high-school exams next week, so Luisa and I led ten primary-school children through the steps: make the t-shirts damp, spiral them, put rubber bands around the spirals, let them soak in soda-ash solution for twenty minutes, squirt our four colors of dye into the shirts, and put them aside for twenty-four hours. The kids carefully followed the instructions and were admirably patient when others were working on their shirts. Tomorrow, Luisa and I will wash out the shirts and see how they came out. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 13 June 2026)