My primary goal with clothes-making is to wind up with something unique. Whether I am sewing a garment from patchwork that I created or upcycling an existing garment to better fit my own personal style, I want the clothes that I fashion for myself to feel special.
Sewing, of course, is one way to transform clothes, but another way that is equally important to me is dyeing clothes. I have dyed clothes for years, experimenting with different processes and techniques. I even dye clothes that I make for myself, like I did with this t-shirt that I made a couple of weeks back.
Lightbulb moment
Last weekend, I bought a white button-up from the thrift store with the idea of dyeing it.
While looking through my dye stash to see what color I wanted to use, I came across a packet of blue synthetic dye (iDye Poly, for those curious). Now, this is normally intended for dyeing clothing with high polyester content, as opposed to a garment that is 100% cotton, for example.
I decided that I would take a stab at dyeing the buttons on my thrifted shirt, since they were plastic.
I removed the stitching from each button. I found that removing the little bits of thread is important to prevent the dye from pooling in certain spots.
In my small dye pot, I combined a few pinches of the dye powder (a little goes a long way) and 2 cups of water.
(Make sure you are not using a pot or utensils that you use for cooking, that is a no-no!)
I boiled the buttons for about 10 minutes, stirring consistently.
I poured out the dye and then rinsed them in cold water. Then, I patted them dry with a paper towel.
I was really amazed by how they turned out!
For the button-up shirt, I dyed it pink and hand-sewed the newly blue buttons back on with a contrasting red thread.
A few days later, I repeated this experiment with another thrifted shirt. This time, I picked a patterned shirt.
I over-dyed the shirt with a purple Rit Dye, and I did the buttons the same way as above.
I love upcycling! And I am so proud of these two shirts.
Thanks for reading!
this makes me want to dye buttons and not even use them, they look that nice, i just want to hoard them like a dragon
So cool! May I ask if you have washed the garments yet? How did the buttons hold up in that process? (I usually line-dry my laundry, but I'd be curious to know if the buttons also survived a spin in the dryer.)