Death To Ugly Floral

As someone who deeply appreciates a beautiful and elegant floral, few things irk and disgust me like ugly floral.  

I didn't know what I was getting into with this dress, I bought it on Etsy and it looked like it was perfectly beautiful, the model wearing it looked totally gorgeous in it, everything seemed fine until it arrived.

Now, if this floral is to your taste, that's fine.  Everyone has their own cups of tea, and I'm not here to yuck your yum- but it's my dress and therefore subjected to my tastes.

The first crime is it's beige.  Now, I don't have the level of loathing of beige that my mother does, but I'm still her child- and beige is often unacceptable.  

The second crime is that beige and I are rarely ever friends within our colour palette circles. This is especially the case because it washes me out entirely, and I look like I haven't had a healthy meal in a year.  

The third crime is the flowers.  They remind me of children's summer wear for the beach- and while that's perfectly acceptable for them, I am not a child and do not wish to dress like one.

So it is with this that I declare I must destroy the ugly.  Why am I going to this trouble?  The cut of the dress is perfect, and when you're shaped as uniquely as I am, you hold onto good fits as best you can.

With 2 parts water to 1 part bleach, I began to obliterate the floral.

After several hours of sitting in bleach, I realised that this light pink and brown monstrosity was about as good as I was going to get without damaging the garmet.  

The dye I used was a risk to say the least.... I used fiber dye and a bit of vinegar because it was handy and it works with fiber, why wouldn't it work with fabric?  Right? 

I begin to realise at this point that the green wasn't going to be as deep as I hope, but this kelly green was so cheerful, I could hardly be unhappy with it!

Until I rinsed and washed it of course.

The picture actually makes it a little nicer looking, but it was a lime green and splotchy catastrophe.  I hung my head in defeat for the afternoon, and then promptly ordered a dark green FABRIC dye.

Thanks to Amazon it showed up in 2 days, and I tried my hand at saving my dress once again.

The instructions called for 1 cup of salt and half the bottle of dye.  The dye part seemed reasonable, but a full cup of salt seems like I'm trying to ward away the greater evils of the universe- which maybe ugly floral and beige belongs to.  Any which way you have it, I obeyed the instructions and waited eagerly.  

Such patience was rewarded, the colour turned out beautiful.  

This deep and admirable green is hard to photograph, but it's beyond charming and I did try to do my best to capture its brilliance.

Lesson learned, use the right dye for the thing I'm dyeing!  

Stay sweet, stay crafty, and stay tuned!