April 2, 2012

Adventures with Rit Dye

Recently Micah came home from the thrift store with a pair of black jeans. Can you imagine Micah in black jeans? There's a reason for that, he won't wear them. But they were Carhart so he figured I could bleach and dye them and he could wear them to work. He is such an optimist.

So we bought dye (note: he picked the color, lighter than I thought we wanted. Just saying) I boiled a huge pot of water and we bleached his jeans.

There is no before picture of black jeans but here they are bleached. Use your imagination.

We poured the boiling water dye and jeans in the wringer washer and let it agitate. for a long time. and things were looking good and blue.



Side note: Do not attempt this process while making rice, it will boil over and then burn while you are distracted and you will have to throw it out and make noodles for dinner.

We drained the dye and washed the jeans to get out the extra dye...they came out kind of pale (i told you so) and with inexplicable spots along the one side. I'm pretty sure we should have used two packets anyway. But i only had very slightly blue fingers so success there anyway.

Wanna know the kicker? They don't fit. They are too tight. Micah will not wear them. And he wonders why I get so frustrated when he refuses to try things on.

6 comments:

Amanda said...

*snortlaugh* i love you guys :)

nancyann said...

Don't they sell BLUE jeans where you live?

Brenda's Man said...

I love you both so much! In Micah's defense, the probably shrunk when you bleached them...yeah that's it! :)

Anastasia said...

Aunt Nanc, We can GET Blue jeans, just not $4.99 Carharts. You have to take what the thrift store has to offer. and when the holes in your ork pants get to a certain size, you have to make do with what they have right now!

Dad, they were his size but they were classic fit, not loose fit. We now try on any and all jeans before purchase. (unless they are 32x30 loose fit carharts.)

Addendum, Last night we gave in and paid $30 retail for a pair of jeans that had better last till Micah outgrows them!

Anne said...

Does anyone have video of this machine in action? I would love see the clothes go into the rollers.
Did you ever get anything caught in a wringer?

Anastasia said...

Anne, I don't have a video of my machine, it's to dark in the basement, but a youtube search of Speed Queen Wringer washer will yield a few.
I do sometimes get things caught in the wringers. Mostly it's like a button on a pair of pants that gets caught but it's easy to stop the wringers pull them out and try again. Occasionally a sock will wrap itself around a wringer but that's another easy fix. I have only pinched my fingers twice.

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