Dyed Dress Shirt and Striped Sweater Sleeve

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Originally uploaded by Sheepish.

Here we have the beginnings of that Dress Shirt Rug I've been telling you about. This was a white shirt that I've dyed red. I think it turned out great. The color in the picture looks a bit pinker than the tomatoe red the shirts turned out to be. You can see I've started to make "yarn" out of it. It's a bit time consuming, but fine for tv watching.

Next to it is the first finished sleeve for my husband's striped sweater. I'm going to start on the body next, I think. I liked the idea of starting into it slowly. A fully finished sleeve gives me the confidence I need to dig in to the body. Since I forgot to mention this before... the yarn used is Knit Picks Alpaca/Silk/Merino yarn. The actual name escapes me at the moment, but it's great yarn. Knits nicely with a great drape and a cool sheen from the silk.

Oh, and a little tip for those who want to try dyeing in their own machine - especially those of you who have washers that empty out into your bathroom sink (or is it just me?). Be sure that you do not leave a nice, new shirt hanging over the edge of the sink after being spot-treated. It really does defeat the purpose of having whipped it off immediately to clean the basalmic vinegar off of it. Guess I'll have to buy another dye to fix that mess! Royal blue, you say? Good thinking!

Other than that mishap, I highly recommend dyeing clothes this way. It's great fun. Red is especially exciting. More so if you have a frontloader and like gorey movies. I don't really like them much, but watching the dye start to splatter the glass door of my washing machine reminded me of the scene of some crime in a suspense film. You know, that splatter part just before a scene transition. When things really got going, it looked a little like I was washing the clothes worn to commit such a crime, though, I guess they usually burn them.