Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Wowzer Wednesday-Dyeing to try it?



When I say I want to dye a t-shirt what is the first thing that comes to your mind? . . .

Tie-dye in elementary school

Well dyeing fabric goes far beyond wrapping rubber bands around an old t-shirt and dunking it into a bucket full of generic dye. I recently decided to try out a more modern approach on the dyeing technique. Now I have to tell you this idea came from searching for a plain black t-shirt for my son. I searched and searched every store in the area but I could not find a plain black shirt. They all had something on them like a pocket or logo. I just wanted a plain black t-shirt so I could play around with my own embellishments. I looked online but they were all way too expensive for a plain black shirt. Come on people $15+shipping for a dumb t-shirt. Anyways, after looking everywhere and not finding a suitable shirt I decided to try my hand at dyeing. I got a few tips from Heather as I knew she dyed clothing before and I headed to the craft store. I bought i-dye which I have heard is a decent brand and followed the directions. Well here is what happened.

I wanted this:


I ended up with this:
Yeah, I knew black was going to be difficult. I figured it would come out gray at the worst. But BLUE! Seriously how bad is that? And it is not even a cute blue. It is a grayish, dirty blue. The shirt is still sitting in my unused craft shirt pile waiting for me to figure out what to do with it. And I also tried to dye a onesie for my daughter at the same time. Her's came out the same color but after a few washings it is now a steel gray which I like. I had Heather use her freezer paper wonders on it and she took an ugly onesie and turned it into something super cute. End of story, do your research before you try dyeing. Maybe you will have better luck but I can tell you I will not be dyeing anything black for a long time. I did want to let you all know that I saw a blog post about dyeing the other day and it was amazing. Great step by step instructions from a professional. Unfortunately I can't remember where I saw it. I did however find this blog that I think might be helpful to all of you interested in dyeing fabrics.

http://simplydyeing.blogspot.com/

Good luck, and let us know if you have a success!

1 comment:

jor said...

oh no! that is too bad. I would have thought it would have at least gone dark grey....that is really weird.