Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Undying a shirt

Now that we're all set up, lets undye this shirt. The purpose of doing this process is to make the coloring even (hopefully getting rid of some nasty bleach spots) so that it can be redyed later on. If you redye a splotchy mess, it's going to end up a splotchy mess, but in a different color :)


Steps to undye a shirt:

1. Pour the mix (Rit color remover) into some "simmering" water. Again, make sure your pot is stainless steel & that it will be dedicated to dying items and not used for food again.



2. Put the damp shirt into the newly mixed solution





3. Be careful of fabric bleeding dye after you've dyed it. This shirt was dyed before (but only was washed once since that) and left a big old bucket of green water after a short time soaking.

4. Wait, stir occasionally, and check the color or lack there of. The box suggests a total of 10-30 minutes in the solution.

This was RIGHT when I put the shirt in, instant change! Most of the green is gone.

1 minute in the mix

10 minutes in the mix

30 min in the mix

*My shirt was STILL splotchy after 30 minutes... so I dared to keep it in the solution longer. I kept a close eye on it and had my fingers crossed that the screen printed image wouldn't come off, and that the shirt wouldn't end up in shreds!*

40 min in the mix, looking pretty good, but still definite spots left.

50 minutes... eek, I ended up leaving my shirt in the solution an extra 20 minutes... but I think it finally came out alright. Hopefully it washes up nicely and is strong enough to be dyed and worn!

5. Rinse the shirt starting in hot water, then going to warm.

6. Wash it, and hope for the best :)

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