The Rit to Dye

As I briefly mentioned last night, I have been working my my first dye experiment. I love my body pillow on my bed, which is useful in so many ways. Works great as a double-pillow while reading, and it was a necessity when I was pregnant and trying to find a position to get some sleep in (between 10 trips to the potty). I just wanted a nicer looking pillowcase for it... it deserved it after the abuse I put it through.

A while back I bought a couple of body pillowcases for under $2 at a going-out-of-business sale. One was white, the other a blueish color. I tried the blue, but it just didn't work... reminded me too much of surgical scrub material. So I thought what the heck! Let's give this dye thing a try!

I decided to bleach the material in a bucket of bleach water, then use the pretty teal-colored Rit that I bought. After a long, and somewhat messy process, I was finished. The results:

Yuck-O! Worse than when I started!! Washed out, fady/dingy blue :P What happened to the pretty teal?? (In hindsight, I should have just dyed the white pillowcase...but I was saving it for another use). My error was that instead of bleaching, I should have bought the Rit stuff that removes the old dye from the fabric. Lesson learned.

So... a trip to Wal-Mart and a bottle of deep chocolate brown Rit produced something much more aesthetically pleasing:

I suppose you could say that the long-pillow is not the centerpiece of the bed, but the under-appriciated workhorse of comfortable lounging. I think the velvety chocolate brown makes a nice backdrop for my favorite satin embroidered pillow.

Next on the list: easy faux bois throw pillows!