Natalie Dyes A Dress For The First Time And It Isn’t A Disaster

This afternoon I decided to dye a dress. I know, who even am I? The level of craftiness is off the fucking charts.

The seed for this endeavor was planted months ago when I was talking about my bridesmaid dress for my brother’s upcoming wedding. It’s a lace-covered dress that I love and while the pale pink color was perfect for the wedding, I knew it wouldn’t be a dress I would wear in a different setting. I prefer bolder colors, like the sample dress I’d tried on in David’s Bridal that had been navy blue in the same style.

I told all this to my coworker and she told me I should just dye the dress afterward. Her daughter does costume design and modifies clothes all the time and she assured me it would be simple, especially with the dress being a light color.

I filed it away. I’ve said before that craft projects really aren’t my thing. I only have the energy for them a couple of times a year. But after the wedding I set the dress purposefully aside, figuring I’d give it a try when I was ready.

Today I ended up with my whole Saturday free and in one of those moods where I wanted to get things done. After a workout class at my gym at 8:30, I came home and cleaned out my closet, drawing my attention to the bridesmaid dress. And what the hell, I wanted to get a sandwich anyway and Michael’s was right next to my favorite place.

By one o’clock I was home with fabric dye, latex gloves, and a large club from Thundercloud Subs.

I prepared the dye bath in my 3L bucket (hot water, a little dish detergent, a cup of salt, and the wine-colored dye), stuffed the dress in, and stirred it absently with metal tongs while I picnicked with my sandwich on my bedroom floor, listening to my audiobook all the while (My Year of Running Dangerously by Tom Foreman).

After 45 minutes-ish, I rinsed the dress out in the sink and then hand-washed it with some detergent (fabric softener? same difference?). Now it’s hanging on my balcony, drying in the Austin heat.

It came out a deep purple color which wasn’t exactly what I expected but I like it a lot — I’m excited to try it on and I can definitely see me wearing this color out and about. The type of dye I got didn’t work on the liner (but that dye wouldn’t have worked on the lace so what’s a girl to do?) so there’s still the pale pink underneath but I think it works. Not bad for an experiment.

Also, zero mess was made. Nothing was dyed that shouldn’t have been, including my cat who kept trying to stick his nose in the bucket. A minor miracle.

With Love,

Natalie