This white blouse I found at goodwill one day was $3. I really loved the flounces and the flowy-ness of this top. And I wanted to practice dying fabric more.
The reason why I wanted to dye it was there were several stains that just would not come out. Sigh.
Then I realized this shirt is 100% polyester.
Most dyes on the market do NOT dye polyester. I found a dye that does dye polyester called iDye on Dharma Trading. They don't have a lot of options for colors, so I opted for black rather than a primary color. Black goes with so much!
Before I started to dye I decided the bottom flounce needed to come off. I thought I could attach it to another project (see part 2 coming soon!). Then I dyed my fabric in my iDye and WOW it worked. It was black! I would have even been happy with various shades of gray but it came out black. So I did a happy dance! (no picture taken sorry).
Next I repeated what I did in the patriotic refashion of the red tank top so I could get more use of stretching elastic while I sewed. I opted to a raspberry pink material this time. Nothing else I thought looked right.
I repeated the same steps again but this time I made sure I stretched my elastic more and more consistently. However when it came to adding the blouse it sat up much higher on my waist rather than my hips. I made sure that it would fit my waist and not be too big.
Now the size of the blouse did not fit the size of the skirt. I found the center and the sides and pinned to the skirt. Next I took off the excess by making small darts. Then I sewed it all down to the elastic. Done!
Note: This dress would not have worked had i not had the buttons on the front of the blouse so I could get in. The blouse doesn't stretch, unlike the red knit tank top so I had to do things a little bit differently. I really wanted to avoid putting in a zipper. I hate zippers, still trying to master that skill.
Anyways. another dress for work. And on top of it, super comfy. Ahhhh. Yay.
XOXOXO,
LaLaLauren
