When I was packing for my trip I came across an old favorite white tunic~style dress by KIWI St. Tropez. Looking at it I remembered how nice the light, gauze fabric felt when I had worn it before, how I loved the weight and the Moroccan style of the the intricate beading at the neckline and wrists and how flattering and comfortable the loose, tailored cut was. It’s one of those dresses that you could easily wear from day to evening on the beach and I was looking forward to wearing it again.
But when I looked at it more closely, I noticed some strange stains had developed on the body of the dress. So I thought to my self….what this dress needs is a good hand wash and a day in the Mediterranean sunshine. So I packed it up and gave it my favorite treatment for white linens in France.
But, for the first time, this treatment didn’t work, at all. I have no idea what those stains are, but darn, they are determined!
But I wasn’t ready to give up on this great travel piece yet.
Next, I thought of the popular saying, “if you can’t beat them, join them”. I’ve always liked the color orange, so why not dye the whole dress orange so the rust colored marks just blended in? Then, maybe it was those pretty Dahlia’s, I thought, why stop at one shade of orange, why not do a fun tie dye affect?
So, using a thin twine I made a loop knot around a scrunched up section of the dress, then brought the 2 ends down and tied another knot and wrapped it around the fabric and then continued that knotting down this section of fabric.
Next, I did more random sections like this all over the dress.
I followed the instructions on the box for dying on the stove top and bathed the knotted up dress in Sunshine Orange RIT dye. It came out looking like this, I was so excited to see how the new color really made the beading POP.
As good as it looked, I wasn’t finished, I wanted to add another layer of color to the piece.
So, I wrapped thick rubber bands around the twined sections to protect the Sunshine Orange color before bathing it in a vat of Tangerine RIT dye.
When I pulled it out I rinsed it in cold water until it ran clear.
When it dried, I was ready for the beach.
For more ideas to~dye~for visit The Rit Studio, I left this site full of inspiration. It’s filled with amazing dying projects that people have submitted. They are using dye to completely transform furniture, wood, door knobs, ceramic planters, furniture, rugs, sunglasses, sheets and towels. They are doing tye-dye, dip-dye, obmre~dye, they are brushing, spraying and squirting dye on things to create incredible patterns and splashes and completely transforming ho-hum items into distinctive, stylish things they love.
Like this dress, they are making flawed items fabulous for a few dollars and having a lot of creative fun in the process.
Have you done any fun dying projects? I’d love to hear about them.
Have a great week.
What a fabulous idea! Whites do get spots and go yellow…How can you go wrong with a burst of orange?!!
Whites are tricky, I share your sentiments on bursts of orange {but I guess you already guessed that?} Thanks for coming by Cindy.