What Dyed in the Kitchen?

This is a public service announcement. If you mix up a bucket of cherry red dye, and you then go to stir said bucket of dye, be very, very careful. Otherwise your kitchen will look like the scene of an animal sacrifice. And you'll ruin several towels trying to hide the evidence  clean the mess. Learn from my mistakes.

Now that that's out of the way...

I bought this gray skirt not long after I turned 21, which is a long time ago, especially in skirt years. (I think the ratio is 3 1/2 skirt years to every human year, but I'm not quite sure.)

Mr. Fox is not impressed by my c.2007 clearance rack Isaac Mizrahi.
Such a little fashionista.

I didn't want to get rid of the skirt, but I didn't wear it in its current form either. Obviously, it was time for an update.

Using my seam ripper, I removed the waistband. Then I measured a few inches from the top of the skirt's waist and pinned to mark where the new waist would be. After sewing along the pins, I cut the excess fabric away and reattached the waistband. (I also had to take the skirt in a couple inches, but I didn't get photos of that.)

The skirt was successfully shortened, but I wasn't finished with it. I mixed up a bucket of Rit's cherry red dye, and tossed the skirt in. (This is where my earlier warning comes in. Beware.)

Not pictured: Cherry red dye all over my floor and splattered on my cabinets.

Because the skirt is a polyester/rayon/spandex blend, I wasn't expecting it to take on a lot of the color. I figured it would be a dark mauve. I figured wrong...

Mr. Fox approves!

I paired my new-old (old-new?) skirt with the lace top I refashioned last October and my trusty black belt.

More information about and photos of this project (and many others) can be found on my blog. Previews of upcoming projects are sometimes posted on my Facebook page, but sometimes I forget. Whoops...

- Elizabeth

aka The Hungry Octopus

Now blogging at www.TheHungryOctopus.com!