Dying Fabric

Hello again!


Not too long ago I needed a pink t-shirt for work. It was going to be customized with one of those ink-jet printer iron on transfers. I knew I would only wear it a few times. I decided that I really only wanted to spend $4 on this shirt. Walmart had several possibilities, but most were too nice to ruin with an iron-on. Others were in the $8 price range, which is still cheap, I know. Still, I had it in my head that I could spend $4. Have you ever gotten stubborn cheap? Well, I was. So I decided to buy a white man's t-shirt for $4 and dye it. Since I was buying for my colleagues too I ended up dying three of them.

Here is the t-shirt. The back shows all twelve teachers at our school who got pink-slipped this year.

I can't comment on darker colors, but I was impressed with how easy it was to get even consistent color with this Rit "Petal Pink". Out of respect for the other tenants who use our laundry room, I did the boil on the stove top method.  It was super easy. I wet the shirts in my tub and soaked them in hot water for a while.Next, I boiled them with the dye for about five minutes each. Then I rinsed them out in the tub and put them in the dryer to set the color.

As long as I had this big pot o'dye on the stove, I decided to try an idea from my Martha Encyclopedia of Crafts. I dyed some printed fabric. In this case I used some bits of vintage sheets.


I like this one the best.

All in all, dying with Rit on the stove top was affordable, easy and fun. I already have plans to dye a shirt that I recently stained. I'll update after using the darker colors.