Refashioned Leggings - Getting down with Tie Dye

 

Braving the library and it's two mouse traps to bring you my last refashion, just some White leggings for my little lady turned Tie Dye awesomeness.

 

 

I'm an all out 70's chick, I'm absolutely obsessed with any kind of crafts from that era, so far Macrame has escaped my attentions but I'm literally one Pompom away from a Blue Peter badge that's for sure. There's something so magical about Tie Dye, it adds such a bold design and it's such a cheap and cheerful way to refashion something especially when you can pick up Tintex dyes at the Dollar store.

 

Strangely I haven't tie dyed anything since school, Sally Tipping and I had some Olive Green dye and went to town on some vests (Tank tops to my US/Canadian readers) I loved the outcome just not the colour, so technically I've never even worn anything that I tie dyed myself, and since these are for my baby girl this refashion is no exception.

 

 Tie Dye tips

• For best results your fabric should be Cotton or other natural fibres (Wool/Silk etc) as they take dye best, Acrylic, Polyester and other Synthetic fibres will take on some dye but in a much lighter tone regardless of how long you leave it.

 

• Make sure you leave the item in until the shade is darker than you require, when you wash out the excess dye it will lighten up and subsequent machine washing could also fade your handiwork so leave it in a little longer.
 
• Use household string to tie up your designs, anything with a colour could bleed on your fabric so best stick to plain string.

• Leave all your knotted pieces in until after you've washed the dye out

 

For Circles you just grab a piece of fabric, twist then tie, for double and triple rings tie again and again further away from the centre and your first knotted string. You can also add a stone into the centre of the fabric before twisting and tying, this helps keep the string in place.

 

For stripes going up the legs I just tied at random intervals with string as tight as I could.

 

The dye was such an amazing colour I couldn't resist throwing in some elastic and eyelet trim for another project, did you know you can dye elastic?

No modelled shots, I swear since my little girl learnt to walk, all photos of her are a complete blur, fingers crossed I can get some blog worthy ones shortly.


Ruby
xx