Dying Elastic (and my hands!)

 One thing I haven't mastered yet (note: I haven't tried though either) is tie dying. I love the look but I've been refraining from exploring in the world of brightly colored dye because quite frankly there aren't enough hours in the day for all of my artistic en devours. So here I am standing on the edge of the kiddy pool, dipping my toe into dying techniques. I confided in some of my pals at CDN and my amigo Kara from Piper's Closet to see if anyone had a good dye recommendation for me to dye thick elastic (to be used as a band for TrashN2Tees Mama Skirts) and the consensus was that it probably wouldn't turn out well unless I used a specific dye for polyester. Alas I did not give up and made my happy google clicking way over to Made. where I found a circle skirt tutorial which included just what I was looking for- dying elastic how tos!

Yeah, I kidnapped one of the boys buckets for this project- it worked. I mixed up my dylon dye with salt and water as instructed. Dropped in the elastic and it was looking a bit lonely in there so I threw in a white tshirt, and then I threw in another white tshirt after that. (The instructions clearly state that the dye amount/color for only 1/2 lb of fabric which is ONE large tshirt but I um, figured they were more like guidelines and any color would be better than white!) My little yellow bucket was practically stuffed and I just left it sit on my back porch for a few hours while I ran errands- no, I didn't stir it every 45 minutes.

And, here is the final product. This has been rinsed and washed. I'm pretty happy with the color and didn't notice any blotchy or speckled coloring from using the powder. I'm sure you're wondering what else I had "stuffed" in my bucket as well-

I think that middle V-neck is destined to become a dress. The little bit on the end will either be bags or yarn... and I really have no idea what I'm going to do with the light houses. In conclusion, dying has been easy peasy and I'm looking forward to experimenting with some more projects this summer! I did manage to have smurf hands but after washing 2x and showering 1x they're returned to normal.