Dip Dye

Mr P's birthday is coming up. He is now working as a teacher and needs some funky duds for work. I did the obligatory wander around Chadstone and saw a shirt I liked. The one thing I didn't like was the pricetag. So I made my own!

Basically the shirt was a check shirt, which had been dip dyed, but from the top, not the bottom. Easy enough. Hello Kmart for a check shirt and I also picked up a white long sleeve top to dye the bottom of. Then to Lincraft and I bought a packet of powdered RIT dye in Navy.

I made the dye bath up in a bucket which was wide enough for my shirts and as deep as I wanted the colour. The dye was fairly concentrated.

I did make some errors.

1. I put the bucket in the kitchen sink. No there isn't dye everywhere, but there wasn't really enough space. I was doing another one for me, but the whole top jumped into the dye.

2. I tied the fabric that I wanted to stay undyed in elastic bands. This meant that the remaining fabric was folded. It was better to hang the garment flat so the colour was more even.

3. Gloves would have been a good idea.

Apart from that it all went well. I left the shirts to soak for about half an hour and then rinsed and dried them. I was really pleased with the results:

Shirt dyed top down. Dye chosen to match the colour in the shirt. Need majority cotton shirt.

I have always liked these - and it worked well.

**Edited- he has now been given gifts. Both fitted and looked really good. He liked them and didn't even realise I had dyed them myself (Despite seeing my Avitarian hands previously!!!)