Dyeing a Dress and How it Turned out

Today’s topic is a little different than usual: dyeing a dress! Let’s get right into it.

Here is the dress in question. It’s actually the dress I wore for my graduation ceremony (and photoshoot) last year. White isn’t really a color I look good in, so after those two events the dress has sat unworn in my closet. Well, that was about to change when I had the idea of dyeing the dress.

Yesterday I actually picked up the dye from the store. I had a little trouble deciding between a teal color and a dark purple, but eventually I decided on the purple.

Of course, since I’d never dyed anything like this before, I was nervous about messing up the dress. Especially since I wasn’t sure of exactly what the dress I was dyeing was made out of. (There is a tag, but it doesn’t seem to be right for the entire dress.) I just decided to go for it, though.

Here’s a few of the supplies I used. Rubber gloves, a thermometer to check the water temperature, and about two ounces of dye.

(This photo is a little blurry, since the water was swirling.) I boiled water in the electric kettle, and added it to a food grade bucket. Which, by the way, I was already filling with tap water turned all the way on hot. Apparently the water has to be pretty warm for stuff like this. Then I followed the directions (mostly) by adding a teaspoon of liquid detergent, half a cup of salt, and the dye. The next step was to add the dress to the water, which I then spent the next forty-five minutes stirring. It was riveting. 😉

(Again, another blurry picture…) Here’s the dress as I washed and rinsed it after the dye process was finished. I washed it by hand, so it’s been on the drying rack since this morning. It’s still a little damp, at nine-thirty p.m.

And here is how it turned out. And, I know what you’re thinking. Did I mean for it to be pink and purple? No, I did not. Am I that disappointed about it? No, not really. I do think it’s kind of amusing, however. I say that because before I dyed it my older sister was like, “what if it turns out pink and purple?”. She was making a joke. But…it really turned out pink and purple. Ha. Anyway, the only thing left to do now is add the dye fixative to the dress. Wouldn’t want all that lovely color washing out, now, would we? (Oh, and I have one more thing to add. This dress in it’s new color looks better in person than in this photo. 😉 )

Overall, the process was pretty easy and what I expected (apart from the first surprise of the coloring, that is 😉 ) I’ll put a link to the dye and fixative, in case you’re interested in doing a little experimenting on your own clothes. 🙂

Well, that’s it for today! Have you ever dyed your own clothing? ~ Emily