Friday, November 12, 2010

Attempt to fix bleach spots on shirt: part II

In case you missed it here is part I of my attempt to fix bleach spots on a shirt

To try to save a bleach spotted shirt, I first used Rit color remover to even out the shirts color.
I used the solution for the minimum recommended time due to the decals on the shirt.  I've heard sometimes those come off with the dye too, but have no experience with this.

Here it the front of my shirt after the color remover: 

Sort of a weird yellow color, but for the most part the coloring is even, which is good.  (hmmm maybe I should have left it this way?  Nah)


Here is the back of the shirt after the color remover:
 

There still is a fair amount of mismatched coloring in the center, but it's better than it was.  I think the color would have blended more if I left the color remover on for more than 10 minutes.


Everything looked good to move forward onto the redying step.

But then, things didn't work out as well as I had hoped.  I believe this was largely due to user error.


What did I do wrong?

This:


I didn't have another container suitable to dye fabric in, and decided this pot (now designated for this purpose only) would be ok if I kept stirring the shirt.

No.  The pot was too small.  Not all of the shirt was covered with dye at any given time, and pockets formed in the shirt creating an uneven dye pattern.  Stirring was hard to do, at least when trying to get things even. 


The images below aren't very accurate as the shirt is still slightly wet from the wash.  So some of the darker areas are water.  BUT, as you can see a nice little spot right in the center of the shirt needing dye.  There definitely are several uneven patches that remained on the shirt after it dried.


Again, a large amount of the dark portions of the shirt are due to it still being slightly wet.  However, there are definite areas needing more dye.  They're kind of wrinkly looking patches.


The areas of the shirt that did not pick up dye for the most part were not the same areas that were affected by bleach.  I think this would have worked well, had I used a bigger dying bucket.


Where does this leave the shirt?

I am not giving up on this thing yet.  I bought a 5 gal bucket (and lid) and some more dye.  I decided I didn't want to do the color remover again.... but now think I will to have a fresh start.  So, I'll have to pick that up sometime and try this again!


No comments:

Post a Comment

I love comments and advice! Thanks in advance :)