Going Gray On Purpose

 Hello Readers. The title of this post doesn't refer to gray hair. I didn't choose the gray hair, but I do have some. I try to hide it. My post today is about using gray fabric dye.

I had this old white shirt. It wasn't torn or stained but it was a little yellowed and a little blah. The white wasn't really a crisp white anymore. It was more of a dingy off-white. I wanted to cover that up somehow. What could I do to fix this shirt? Rit fabric dye was my first step.
(I was not paid to say that, they don't even know me.)

Here is the dye I had on-hand in my laundry room. It is "Graphite Gray" for synthetic fabrics. My shirt was cotton. Would this dye work on my cotton shirt? I was going to try it and find out. I thought that even if it only worked a little, it might still improve this shirt.

Here is the shirt. It took the dye really well. The dye really made the shirt look fresh and even left a little bit of a sheen on the fabric. It was a big improvement.

The color was better. I liked the gray but this shirt was big and baggy. I was sure I could do something better with the fit of this tunic style shirt.

I decided to make the shirt a little more narrow. I also wanted to save those scrap pieces to make a belt to tie at the waist.

I made this long tube by connecting all the pieces. I didn't like the way the connection points looked so I added a couple buttons to the belt hide the sloppy spots. 

    

I was happy with how the belt cinched in the waist. It looked more flattering.

This was a great shirt with leggings because it was long enough to cover the caboose. It is also great for some casual biking.

 

I had extra room in the washer when I dyed the shirt so I threw a pair of shorts in too. I had added some gray lace to the shorts but the color of the lace was much lighter than the color of the shorts.

Here are the shorts after the dye. The lace on the shorts is darker than the un-dyed lace on the roll but it is not quite as dark as the shorts.

Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

*Year end update- I have this shirt in the front of my closet and the shorts are waiting for next summer.