Dip Dye Ombre Skirt DIY

I love reading (looking at?) fashion blogs like Pink Peonies and Atlantic-Pacific, but    the idea of doing my own outfit posts had never crossed my mind until this week.  For one, I don’t shop often enough to have new outfits to share.  Secondly, I am not terribly photogenic and the idea of flashing my awkward mug all over the interwebs just seemed a little ridiculous.

Why did that change, you ask?  A few weeks ago I made a skirt out of a pair of white pants that I never wear.  Then, I got inspired to try to do an ombre/ dip-dye look.  I was so stinkin’ happy with the result and wanted to find a way to share it.  Pat agreed to take some snaps of me looking awkward modeling in the park behind our house.  Luckily, Pat is incredibly patient and talented – he managed to make me look halfway decent!

Dip Dye Ombre Skirt

Note: This is a good project to do outside on a nice day because it can get pretty messy!

You will need:

Garment
Rit or other fabric dye in the color of your choice
Bucket
Salt
Laundry detergent
Clothespins

Disposable gloves

1. Using gloves, prepare dye bath following package directions.  I doubled the amount of dye powder that the recipe called for because my pail was too small to hold enough water and I didn’t want to waste half a packet.

2.  I’ve seen some sites fashion a wooden rod to suspend the article over the dye bath, but I am too impatient and not skilled enough for such things, so I just held it skirt over the dye bath.  First, I held just the first inch of the skirt in the dye bath for about 15 minutes, until it became the dark purple color you see at the bottom. I think this is an advantage to doubling the dye concentration, as it is quicker and easier to get a deeper color.  Note: You may want to do a test or scrap fabric to see what color your water is.  I had a leftover pant leg that I used for this purpose.

3.  I used some extra fabric to soak up some of the dye concentration so the purple wasn’t so dark before I dyed any more of the skirt.

4.  Next, I very quickly dipped the skirt in the dye bath up to 1 inch below the distance that I wanted purple.

5.  Lastly, I dipped the skirt slowly in and out of the dye back to fill in the gradient you see between the lightest and darkest parts.  Each time I dipped a little less of the skirt in the dye bath.

6.  Lastly, I dipped the skirt all the way up to the entire part that I wanted dyed.  Because you have used up some of the dye to do the rest of the skirt, the water will be slightly lighter than in step 4.

7.  Gently wring out only the area that is covered with dye and hang to dry using the clothespins.  Make sure this is in an area where the colored drips won’t stain anything – like outside!

8.  When the skirt has been hanging for at least a few hours, rinse with cold water until it the water turns clear, holding the garment so that the colored water doesn’t run over the non-dyed portion.  A garden hose or laundry sink is good for this part, if you have one.

9.  Hang the garment up with clothes pins again and let dry completely.

P.S. – I thought about doing a tutorial about how I turned an old pair of white jeans into a skirt, but it seemed like too much work when it’s so nicely explained here.