Kelcie Armbruster

My name is Kelcie Armbruster. I live in Northern California in Auburn CA. I have been tie-dyeing for 1.5 years. I am a Peer Counselor for Advocates for Mentally Ill Housing where we work with individuals with Mental Health problems. We are a non profit and have 9 transitional houses, 2 whole person care houses and the emergency mental health house Monarch in which I work. We offer groups to our clients and their favorite is the tie dye group.

I am the instructor and we only order our needed items from Dharma Trading. My mother is a old school hippy and she has used Dharma for years. I make many different things but my specialty is the turtle- sea and land. Everyone ALWAYS wants one and its hard to choose who to give it to. Besides the turtle, I also love creating peace signs and mandalas which are so beautiful and tricky to make. I created the turtles on my own, they are inspired by my Russian tortoise Gilbert who I love dearly. I get a lot of inspiration from the clients to continue tie dye because they love doing it so much. If it was up to most of them they would do tie dye every week!!!

I use Dharma Fiber Reactive Procion Dyes. I really like the dragon fruit, dutch chocolate, bright green, ice blue, periwinkle, raven black and my favorite all time color is the blue violet. I use this as much as possible. I have also used the synthrapol detergent, the soda ash, the bottles, etc. I use a lot of Dharma products as i find they are higher quality than anything you will ever find at the craft store. I have purchased clothing as well and the handkerchiefs are my favorite for the group events. I love how I can call Dharma and a live person will walk me through any issue I am having while tie dyeing.

Thanks for making the great products that you do!!!