RIT Dye to the Rescue!

Unless you live under a rock, you know that it is football season in America.

Being Wisconsin Natives we root for the green and gold. 

The boys were given some Packer shirts by their daddy so they can be good little fans.

Doodle's came as a two for one deal with a long sleeve white shirt under a short sleeve green T.

Of course Doodle wants to wear them separately so he can have 2 packer shirts.

However white shirts and my six year old do not go together.

That is a combination like oil and water, 

or mustard and milk, 

or a Chicago Bear fan in Green Bay.

They just don't mix. 

Doodle snuck this shirt twice before I could do something about that white color. Both times he stained it. One of those times he never even left the house.

See that blue on the sleeve?

That's chalk.

After it was sprayed with stain spray and washed.

This kid has talent folks.

He takes after his momma in the stain department.

So I dug around in my newly cleaned and updated craft closet (a post about that will be coming soon) and found a box of RIT dye.

The color was perfect.

The day was right.

I've used RIT before with mixed results but have rarely had the patience to actually follow the directions exactly on the box.

I decided today would be different.

First you Dissolve the dye powder in 2 cups hot water.

Then, add 1 cup of salt.

I was a little short, but I used less water so I thought it would be okay.

See - I told you I can't follow directions exactly.

Rinse the shirt in warm water and wring out. 

Have your large pot of hot water ready with 1 TB of laundry detergent mixed in.

Add your shirt.

Look, it takes on color immediately! 

Now the hard part is that you are supposed to stir it constantly for as long as it takes to reach the desired color, up to a half hour.

I was afraid it would actually take a half hour of stirring, but it didn't. It only took a few minutes.

I wanted it to be a medium grey color so it wouldn't show the dirt easily but not too dark because I wanted the writing to  show up well.

When it looked about right, I took it out. I used rubber gloves so I could touch it but it was still really hot, so be careful!

After the dip in the pot you need to rinse the shirt in warm water until the water runs clear.  Then throw it in the wash on warm, and toss it in the dryer.

I was afraid that the shirt would lose a lot of color during the laundering process, but it didn't.

The color stayed pretty well.

The final product turned out well with color that was pretty uniform throughout the whole shirt. Plus, it is a much more kid friendly color now. All in all it was a quick and easy project. 

I used that same pot of dye to tint 3 more shirts, 2 of which were white shirts I had ruined in a batch of laundry with a faded red pair of pants. 

What was I thinking?

Well, thanks to RIT they have been redeemed. 

Which is good because one shirt belonged to my middle son and he wasn't too keen on wearing a pink robot shirt around.

You should know that as I dyed each shirt, they each turned out a little bit lighter in color. But I didn't want to let them sit in the dye bath for an extended period of time either. It didn't bother me that they turned out that way,  I wasn't trying to make them match. 

Doodle is pretty happy that he won't get in trouble for staining his white shirt anymore.

Now he can cheer for the home team with wild abandon.

Well, almost.

No, RIT did not compensate me in any way for this blog post. All opinions are my own.