Dye 101

I had this shirt that I liked...but the color was not the best on me. It was a whitish Grey with while lace trim. I decided this morning to dye it navy blue, but I did not want to dye the lace.... What I ended up with was a pleasant surprise that I thought I would share with y'all (in case someone wants to dye something!)

First I took the shirt and tied the hemline where the lace was in a rubber band type thing to keep it contained and separate from the rest of the shirt. I tied an apron string to the rubber band and attached that to the cupboard door handle above the stove so that the lace would remain above the dye in the pot while the rest of the shirt would get dyed. Ingenious right!? Well not exactly for the result I was looking for.
You see, the dye kinda seeped through the rubber band... and got on the lace..and then only parts of it were blue. and it was splotchy.

I was a little disappointed as I rinsed the shirt so I just took it for what it was and washed the whole thing in clean water. Now the residue of dye in the shirt dyed that water and consequently made the lace a light shade of the same blue as the shirt. what I did not realize at the time was that since I bunched up the bottom of the shirt when I dyed it, I ended up making a very neat tie dye hem line that matched the rest of the shirt perfectly!

Below are some pictures of the result.












PS if you have dye (rinse) water left in the sink...try adding bleach and see what happens! In my other life I may just have to be a mad scientist.