Dyeing Fabric!

I've been cleaning out my closet and realized that there are several items that I never wear because of the color (or lack thereof). I didn't take a before picture, but I had a pair of tencel high-waisted shorts from H&M that were a nude-ish color. I bought them in Chicago two years ago and the tags were still on! Yeesh. 

I also threw in two yards of voile that I bought from Gorgeous Fabrics a while ago. It was safety cone orange. Not good. I'll talk about my plans for that later.

The Set-Up: I really should've laid down plastic. Oops.

I used Dharma Fiber Reactive Procion Dyes from Dharma Trading Company.  I didn't measure exactly, but I used all 2 oz. of jungle red, about 1 and a 1/2 tbsp of lemon yellow and 1/2 tbsp of fuchsia red.

Fin! They are actually kind of dark honeysuckle. More pink than orange.

I wanted them to be slightly more orange, but I'm still thrilled with the results. The big snafu was that the shorts were sewn with polyester thread (which doesn't take this particular dye), so I'm left with white topstitching.

The verdict? Dyeing is fun. So fun that I've pre-washed several more items including my recently finished Green Tea Raglan. I used the green yarn that is pictured, but have plans to dye it cobalt or navy.

Next up: A Sorbetto muslin and way too many Kwik Sew 3703 maxi dresses!