I rarely wear white.
Whether it’s because I’m clumsy, and whatever the garment is, it’s going to be stained with coffee within five minutes, or whether it’s the fact that it completely washes out my pale skin (SPF 100 4 Lyfe), I just don’t wear it.
Today’s refashion looks like it was meant to be some sort of Easter dress from the 90’s.
While the fit was spot-on, the style was soooo not “me”!
I did, however love this detailing around the shoulders:
I also loved that this dress was made in the USA (a rare find, these days!)!
Refashion Pro Tip: When you see a potential refashionable with details like this, DYE IT! The thread content in the details is likely to be different from the rest of the garment, ergo it will take the dye at a different saturation level. This usually results in some really pretty transformations!
I thought about making this dress into a top, but realized I pretty much just did that. No worries! I liked the shape/fit of this dress. It just needed a little…help.
I grabbed my seam ripper!
The first things to go were those shoulder pads.
Now for the fun part! I grabbed a couple o’ bottles of dye. For this refashion, I choose fuchsia and brown.
I used a 3/4 fuchsia/1/4 brown mix. A few of you have asked why I usually mix my dyes. Think of it like this…when you watch a painter paint, they don’t usually use paint from right out of the tube, right? No, they mix many colors together!
To get more complex, rich colors, you’re going to have to blend them. Here’s a website for paint mixing that I think covers dye mixing as well (I promise a longer dye mixing post is in coming). Rit also has a section on their site that covers dye mixing/color formulas.
I wanted a funky boho uneven dye job for this refashion, so I mixed my colors in a small bowl (I’m going to wad the dress up in it), along with some salt (as per the directions on the bottle).
Then I added hot water and mixed it in with the dye.
Then, I wadded up my dress and submerged it in it’s cramped dye bath.
The key to getting an uneven dye job is to NOT stir the dress. The idea is, since it’s wadded up, they dye will absorb at differing levels.
After about 45 minutes, I took my dress out of its bath, rinsed it in the sink, and then tossed it in my washing machine for a short cycle to make sure it was fully rinsed.
But I wasn’t done just yet!
I hated those ties on the sides, so I unpicked the area around them and removed ’em!
This left me with a couple of gaping holes.
A quick stitch session followed!
Now my newly-funkified dress was ready for an evening entertaining friends!
I’m quite happy with how that shoulder detailing worked out, and how those pearls really stand out now!
The bubs (this is what I call my dogs) seemed to gravitate towards my latest refashion as well!
In conclusion, if you’ve been afraid to try dye mixing in the past, I hope you now feel confident to give it a go! 🙂
Cheers!
