From White to Gray

Jesse does our laundry. Isn't that awesome? I love it. And, quite honestly, he's really good at it too. He separates the colors so nicely, adds just the right amount of bleach to the whites, he doesn't mind that I make our own laundry soap and that sometimes the supply runs out just as he is trying to finish up, and he carefully hangs any of my clothing that he thinks just maybe shouldn't go in the dryer. Ah, he is good.

So . . . we were both quite surprised, and kind of annoyed, that when I was folding our laundry and putting it away recently I noticed that one of my favorite new sweatshirts had been tainted with bleach. How could it be? We don't know. It seemed to be the only victim of random bleaching that day.

It took me about 24 hours to mull over how I wanted to cope with this new loss. The fabric is cute (a nice white and gray horizontal stripe), should I cut it up and make something else out of it? Do I just throw it away? Then, it came to me . . . I should dye it!

Not too long after my new realization, I spent an evening boiling up some dye brew.


I had black dye on hand, and thought that would be fun to experiment with. I also went to my closet to see if I had anything else that needed an uplift. Turns out I did! Here's what came of it:


The sweatshirt. Turned out a little blotchy (from where the bleach had been), but not too bad. Definitely wearable on the weekend.


Hmmm . . . the picture makes this shirt look like the bottom is darker than the top. That's not the case. Anyway, this shirt used to be white and was just getting a little dingy. I still love the shape and style. So a nice shade of gray is a good way to keep it lasting.


Same with this shirt. It used to be white and was just getting . . . I don't know . . . old. It also is now a nice shade of gray. Plus, I love the way that the dye didn't pick up the stitching on the blouses. Adds a really cool effect!

All in all, I'm very happy about the transformation. A little bit of dye can go a long way.