Wednesday, February 26, 2014

DIY: Bleach Dyed Sweat Shirt


If anyone can figure out why oh why
I waited all these years to try bleach dying please let me know! 

I am kinda obsessed with single color 
tie dye which is what inspired this project.
Yet I have never tie dyed anything.
I have had this black sweat shirt for many many years.
It's always been one of my favorites,
but in recent times it's just started to look a little beat.

It needed something.
A pick me up if you will.
So a good bleach tie dye became it's fate.

I found this great DIY on 
Say Yes To Hoboken,
but as many of the things I see on Pinterest,
it didn't really work out for me.
I followed her directions to a T and the only results 
were one or two bleached out marks.

So I became frustrated with the project,
the hubs and I laughed at my waste of a 
perfectly good shirt, and I decided to take this project to the max.

At this point there was no coming back for this top, 
so my fears of "ruining" it went out the window.

I rinsed and rinsed the residual bleach from my first attempt.
I then re-twisted and rubber banded the top while it was still wet.

Part of my hesitation with tie dye or bleach dye in the past 
has been a lack of control, but I shook that off and just 
told myself that this wasn't an exact science.

After the sweat shirt was twisted and banded I
fully submerged the tangled mess into a bowl of straight bleach.

In the previous DIY steps that I had tried to follow
I was told that it would take 12+ hrs to see any change in color.
Well with my way it was almost instant.
With in about an hour I had the top out of the bowl.

I have to be honest with you,
at this point I was pretty sure that the next step for this 
beloved sweat shirt was the trash can.
The entire top appeared to be, well, tan.

I began to cut off the rubber bands on at a time,
as the shirt unraveled beautiful pinks, blacks, and creams were revealed.
Once I got the entire sweat shirt opened up I rinsed it until no more color 
bleed into the water.

I was so pumped up about how this top
turned out that I actually raided my closet for more things to
bleach dye.

Have you experimented with bleach dying?
I would love to see your projects! 
Share your secrets and results! 



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