Shades

I was on my own yesterday evening as my husband had to go for a meal with work, so I used it as an opportunity to make a big mess in the kitchen with fabric dye! It was so much fun! I really want to add more colour into my wardrobe as I think I'm at my happiest when I'm wearing pretty colours.

It all started with the top on the left which I found in a Charity Shop. It's a lovely thick jersey, so it makes a great jacket, and I love the little collar. It was originally cream, and this determined which colour I chose to dye it. I've tried to dye cream things cool colours in the past (grey and blue) and it does not work as the cream adds a yellow tinge and it ends up a murky green. So I thought I'd go with the warm tone and add pink over it. The dye I used was called Camellia, and I also mixed in half a pack of Rosewood Red (although I'm not sure if it had much of an effect on the final colour...).



I mixed up the dye bath and added the cardigan in and stirred it for about 15 minutes. Then I suddenly remembered that I had a box full of old clothes under the bed that I no longer wear. I started rummaging around and found the blouse with the cut out detailing. This was actually a dye-disaster from a few years ago. It was almost a fluorescent pink and totally unwearable. So I added this to the dye bath.

Then I found the little camisole top. This was a nasty semi see-through white, and didn't have much going for it really. So I added this into the bucket of dye!

Finally I found the top with the tie straps. This was light yellow jersey with a cotton trim and patch pockets from about 4 years ago. It was also quite sheer and something that I just didn't like anymore. In the dye bath it went!



This was probably totally the wrong way of going about it, but I love how the later pieces ended up paler. In fact I wish the first cardigan had ended up this shade. I find Dylon dyes a bit of a mystery as they don't reveal any information about mixing colours or achieving lighter shades: it's all guess work! For this reason, I will try Rit Dyes next time, as the website has a whole page of dye recipes. Since I last looked into buying Rit, they have become available to Amazon UK.

I made a horrible mess and my hands are stained pink (I gave up with the rubber gloves in the end as the dye had seeped inside!) but I'm happy with my shades of pink. I've tried on the cardigan with a navy blue top and the colour actually looks really beautiful - like a shade of raspberry. They look a bit sickly all together but I think they will add just the right amount of colour to an outfit when worn in smaller quantities!

I'm desperate to do some more dying (this time Turquoise) but I've run out of spare clothes!