Going green

Well, you guys, I did it. I wanted Green and that's... kind of...what I got! I threw all caution I'd expressed in my previous post to the wind and threw this beige/grey eyelet dress into the vat (my kitchen sink) of Kelly Green dye. Here's how it turned out.

Before:

...and after!

The cotton fabric part of the eyelet took the green dye really well and is a little, tiny bit more saturated looking in real life than in this picture. The thread of the eyelet embroidery and the matching grey lining, however, did not take a drop of dye and magically look exactly the same as where I started. This is what I'd been afraid of, but I'm actually finding myself liking the way it looks now! The (now) contrasting lining and stitching make the flowery pattern of the fabric much more pronounced and ...interesting.

Here's a closer look.

The one downside of this project has been that the cotton part of the dress, mainly just the skirt, though, has shrunk a little bit from the hot water and subsequent washing/drying of the dyeing process. Now the grey lining peeks out and is longer than the hem of the skirt. That can be easily fixed, though. :)

I also threw a bit of bright white, synthetic something-or-other, lace in the dye solution in hopes of making it some shade of green. Surprisingly, it came out baby blue! It's pretty but, I'm not sure what I'll do with it.

Those cut pattern pieces you're seeing are part of my latest sewing project, which also happens to involve the emerald cotton sateen I picked up at G. Street fabrics during the sewing blogger meetup earlier this month. I'm hoping for a cocktail dress to wear around Christmas. It was totally unplanned, but after looking on etsy for something vintage, and drooling over this dress pinned to my inspiration board, I decided to just make something...and if it doesn't quite work out, I'll just wear something I've already got. :)

Hooray for green! More details on my WIP soon.